Kingdom (62 page)

Up ahead, men’s voices lifted as the trees began to thin. Humphrey squinted at the brightness as the afternoon sun stabbed down through the breaks in the branches. The woods gave way to a patchwork of fields interspersed with blackened expanses where crops had been burned to stubble. There was no sign anywhere of either humans or livestock. The men didn’t comment on the desolation, used to such sights in the march from the Borders. Further along, the road dipped down towards a wide stream, beyond which it rose again and disappeared into more woods. Suddenly, there was a shout from one of the men at the front. Humphrey rose quickly in his stirrups to see what had alerted them. As the sun filled his vision, he raised his hand to shield his eyes. There, in the shade of the distant trees, were figures – hundreds of them. It was hard to tell with the distance and the sunlight, but it appeared as though they were scattering.

Gilbert clearly thought so, for he let out an excited yell, ‘The Scots! The Scots! They’re fleeing!
On them!
’ Snatching his lance from his squire, the Earl of Gloucester spurred his warhorse along the road, followed by his men, among them Henry de Bohun.

Humphrey yelled a warning, but the din of hooves drowned it out. Spitting a curse, he snapped down his visor and wrenched free his broadsword. ‘
With me!
’ he roared at his knights and squires, kicking hard at the sides of his horse.

As he charged with the rest of the vanguard, through the rising plumes of dust, stones skittering off his helm, kicked up by the destriers in front, Humphrey fixed on the figures beneath the trees. There was one man on a grey horse out in front of the others. He caught a flash of red on his yellow surcoat and the gold gleam of a crown mounted on his helm.

Robert.

St Ninian’s Kirk, Scotland, 1314 AD

The tower of St Ninian’s rose from the green shroud of the woods, its stone walls blushing in the sun. The fifteen hundred men of Thomas Randolph’s company sat on the grass in its cool shadow. Earlier all of them had been poised and ready, spears in their hands and helms on their heads, but as the day wore on the heat and the wait had taken their toll. Now, most of them had removed their helms and had set down their spears. Some talked, while others dozed.

Thomas Randolph leaned against the low wall that ringed the church’s cemetery and took another draught from his water skin. Bees thrummed in the long grass that had grown up either side of the track that led to the church. In front of him, the land sloped into a broad meadow, dappled pink with orchids. Beyond, woodland rose. A heat haze rippled over the trees, distorting the air. Swilling the water around his mouth, Thomas glanced behind him at the resting men. He’d heard several of them muse that the English wouldn’t show themselves today and, if they did, it would be the king’s force that encountered them. While proud to be the commander of one of the king’s companies, Thomas couldn’t help but feel restless, wanting to be in the fight with his uncle. His victory at Edinburgh had given him a taste of fame that he didn’t want to see fade in the face of other men’s glory.

There was a sound somewhere off in the woods to the south – it sounded like a cheer. Thomas pushed himself from the wall, frowning as he listened over the hum of bees and the murmured conversation of his men.

‘Quiet,’ he said sharply, turning to those nearest to him.

Suddenly, the sky over the woods darkened. The air filled with harsh caws as a huge flock of crows flew over. The men stopped talking, watching as the birds surged overhead. A few crossed themselves at the ill omen. After they had gone, Thomas heard more sounds: distant shouts and the shuddering echo of arms. He was turning to alert his men when two figures burst out of the woods and came sprinting across the meadow. They were his scouts, set to watch the track further down.

‘Sir!’ panted one, racing up the slope. ‘The English!’

Beyond the meadow, from out of the fringes of the wood, came a mounted troop of men, five hundred or more strong.

As Thomas tossed aside his water skin and yelled at his men, they began jumping to their feet, snatching up spears and pulling on helms. Swiftly, eyes wide, but focused, they moved into the formation they had been drilled in every day for the past five months.

Where moments before they had been scattered across the grass in the shadow of the church, the company now became a giant crescent, six men deep, their twelve-foot-long spears balanced on shoulders and gripped, two-handed, so as to be effectively manoeuvred; jabbed and thrust when needed. Such formations of spearmen, known as schiltroms, had been employed at Falkirk by William Wallace, but unlike Wallace’s stationary rings, Randolph’s schiltrom was a movable hedge of iron-tipped death, capable of advancing in its crescent, then closing round into a ring to protect itself.

At Thomas’s order, the fifteen hundred men began to move as one down the slope on to the meadow to meet the incoming cavalry, over the heads of which the banners of Robert Clifford and Henry Beaumont soared.

Bannock, Scotland, 1314 AD

Robert, shouting at his company to form up among the trees, saw the English vanguard break. Splitting from the main body, a pack of men came charging along the road, lances raised. As they plunged through the ford over the Bannock Burn, the hooves of their destriers kicked up plumes of water that glittered with fractured sunlight. They were about half a mile away, but gaining quickly, the powerful horses eating up the distance. He realised, as they powered their mounts up the road, that they weren’t going to fall foul of his traps. Rather than forming into a long line, as expected, they were coming in a fragmented column, with little sense of order. No matter. They would fall the same on to the points of his spears.

Spurring his grey palfrey along his rapidly forming crescent of men, Robert urged them out of the trees in their schiltrom, spears forward, ready to shatter the cavalry’s charge. He bellowed that the might of St Andrew was in their arms and the blessing of God upon their souls. Angus MacDonald and the fifty other mounted men with their king, among them Malcolm of Lennox, Nes and Cormac, had ridden out of the cover of the woods, hefting shields into place and drawing swords, maces and war-hammers. The approaching hooves of the English were a wild drumming, filling the air. Battle cries were tearing from throats. Lances were levelling, couched for impact.

‘
My lord king!
’

Robert, bellowing at his troops, twisted in his saddle at Angus MacDonald’s yell. The Lord of Islay had thrust his finger towards the road. One knight had split off from the others and was thundering towards him, up the grassy bank. Robert caught a wave of blue silk, the man’s mantle billowing as he came, lance levelled. Instinct took over, firing through Robert. Raking his spurs across the palfrey’s sides, he sent the animal plunging down the slope towards the incoming knight. In his hand, he still had the axe Christiana had given him. He tightened his grip on the shaft. Some of his men were crying out in fear and warning. He paid them no heed.

The Scottish king and the English knight came together on the hillside in a shuddering rush of limbs and metal. The lance was thrust towards Robert. At the last moment, he swerved, pulling his body out of its lethal path. Its iron tip sliced on past him, missing him by inches. At the same time, he rose in his stirrups. With an almighty roar, Robert swung the axe, bringing it carving round towards the knight’s helmed head. The Blade of the Isles struck with such force it sliced through the helm, the padded coif and the skull beneath, all the way down through the brain. There was a wrench in Robert’s arm and a snapping sensation, then he was powering on past, the momentum of the charge carrying him some distance, before he was able to wheel his horse around. In his hand was a splintered stump of shaft. The axe blade had vanished, buried in the skull of his opponent.

Behind him, an immense cheer rose, sending a flock of crows scattering into the sky from the woods. Turning, Robert saw the knight crumpled on the grass. His horse had bolted. The rest of the English had slowed their advance at the sight of their fallen comrade. Spurring his horse back up the slope, Robert saw six golden lions on the blue of the man’s mantle. Something cold went through him. The man’s head had been split like a nut, his face carved open and a fractured stub of wood sticking out obscenely. The gleam of the blade was visible in the grey sludge of brain. Although the face was ruined, Robert knew it wasn’t Humphrey. He felt an unexpected sense of relief as he kicked his horse back to his cheering men, drawing his broadsword as he went.

Now, shouting at them to keep in good order, he led them surging down the hillside towards the faltering English vanguard, which had split itself into a ragged mess with the impetuous charge of the knights.

Most of the English at the head were clad in gold surcoats emblazoned with three red chevrons – the arms of the Earl of Gloucester. The earl was visible among them, his helm crested with a spray of goose feathers dyed red. He was yelling, rousing his men to form up and charge the incoming Scots. Behind them, plunging along the road, the rest of the vanguard rode to aid their comrades.

The first clash was brutal, Robert and the fifty horsemen with him crashing straight through the front lines of knights. Robert hacked his broadsword into the neck of a rearing horse, spattering himself and the beast’s rider in a hot spray of blood. The knight dropped his lance, but raised his shield to block as Robert swung the sword at him. The steel blade smacked into the wood with a resounding crack. As his horse, blood pumping from the deep wound, buckled under him, the knight fell forward. His free hand flew up instinctively, but was no defence for Robert’s sword that came arcing in at his neck.

Close by, Malcolm of Lennox was clashing with another of Gloucester’s knights, the red roses on his surcoat livid in the sunlight. Grabbing his opponent’s bridle, Malcolm hauled the man in closer and rammed his sword into his side. The knight doubled over, retching blood that gushed beneath his helm. Beside them, another English knight, shouting furiously, carved the head off one of Malcolm’s men. Angus MacDonald was hacking through the front rows of the enemy. Having felled two squires, he cuffed a knight’s lance aside with his shield, then battered the man’s head with a furious chop of his sword. The man’s helm dented, the eye-slit crushed along the bridge of his nose. He tried to wheel his horse out of the mêlée, but his horse was cut out from under him by the spearmen of the king’s schiltrom, who now surged in.

Destriers reared up, hooves striking at the men in front of them. Others gnashed at their tormentors. One beast bucked so violently its back hooves propelled the spearman it struck into two men behind him, knocking them flying. More English knights were ploughing into the fight, but they had lost any momentum and their horses were slowed by exhaustion after the day’s march. A number of them tried to form up in a line to charge the flanks of the crescent of spearmen, but as they spread out from the road they found themselves at the mercy of the hidden pits dug by the Scots. Beasts screamed piteously as they staggered into the holes, spikes puncturing hooves, laming them instantly.

A roar came swelling through the trees of the New Park. The men of the beleaguered English vanguard twisted round, eyes widening in horror as hundreds upon hundreds of spearmen cascaded down from the woods. They were led by two score horsemen. At the front, sword raised, was Edward Bruce.

Gilbert de Clare had been knocked from his warhorse and was fighting furiously on foot. A ring of Scottish spearmen were closing in on the earl, but he was making short work of them, clouting aside their spears with his broadsword and stabbing savagely at necks and thighs, unprotected by armour. Now, seeing this new host come to aid their king, he thrust his sword into the face of a young man in front of him, then turned and barrelled his way through the press. His retainers moved in at his back, fending off blows while he grabbed the reins of a riderless horse. Jabbing his mailed boot into the stirrup he hauled himself into the saddle and spurred his way out through the mass of men.

Humphrey roared at the others to withdraw, before kicking his destrier out of danger, battering aside several spearmen as they lunged at him. Many of the English were doing the same, those who could breaking from the fight and charging down the road, back the way they had come. As the vanguard scattered, fleeing across the Bannock Burn, many Scots howled in triumph and raced to follow, but Robert, panting hard and soaked in sweat, bellowed at them to stay. He had seen too many men charge a fleeing army in blind exultation, only to find themselves cut off and cut down.

The dust on the road was clotted with blood, the ground around it littered with bodies of horses and men. Robert wiped the sweat from his eyes and did a quick reckoning. He had lost maybe a score, although a fair number were also injured, some badly so from the cries and groans as their comrades tried to help them. The English, however, had suffered far worse casualties. Casting around, Robert counted more than sixty dead or wounded men, many in the colours of Gloucester or Hereford. Ordering Angus MacDonald and Malcolm Lennox to take those left alive prisoner, he turned to meet his brother, who was riding towards him.

Edward shook his head with a grin as he pulled his horse to a stamping halt by his brother. ‘You left none for me.’

‘There will be more,’ said Robert, between breaths, thinking of the host James Douglas had described to him. He looked in the direction of the fleeing knights, who had crossed the Bannock Burn and were already disappearing in the shadow of the Torwood. Although their faces were covered by helms, he was certain Humphrey de Bohun had been among them. He wondered what on earth the earl had been doing. It seemed unthinkable that Humphrey would have headed such a disorganised charge. ‘They might as well have thrown themselves on our spears,’ he murmured.