Games of Otterburn 1388 (32 page)

The Scots crowed and hooted loudly.

The wall was embarrassingly quiet.

“We’ll get it back tomorrow,” growled Sir Ralph at his brother’s elbow.

Hotspur turned and gave Ralph a hard thump on his chain mail armor to relieve his anger but it only hurt his own hand. He grimaced but was thankful for the distracting pain as he reluctantly turned his limping horse and left the field.

Ralph was second across the drawbridge followed by the twenty knights who felt cheated that they were not invited to join in a ‘hoped for’ mêlée battle that was far from the original scheme of the planned event.

August 17 - Evening

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The small contingent of Scots rallied around their hero with accolades galore. He was the same man as he was the hour before but they all wanted to touch him and the feared lance of the famous Hotspur Percy.

Douglas
sauntered to his small tent that he considered his temporary lodge and did what he was expected to do. He turned the lance upside point down and pushed it into the still squishy mud with the dangling pennon, the pride of Sir Henry Percy, still attached.

“
Slaughterin
’ the last two beefs for our supper!” loudly announced
Douglas
in his euphoric state.

Renewed cheers went up.

Douglas
still had the reins of
his
hero of the hour, the white stallion,
Sorrow, that
seemed to hold its own sense of warrior pride amid the excitement of the throng.

The hand of Sir John Edmonstone reached up to pull his horse’s head close to him. He had been so proud about the stallion’s performance.

“
Ye’ve
a fine knight’s destrier there,” bragged
Douglas
. “How’d ye train him to fight in the mud?”

“Grew up in the mud, he did,” said Edmonstone. “What I taught him was the
rammin
’ and
kickin
’ part.

Douglas
laughed.

Edmonstone laughed.

All within ear shot got a good laugh from that say.

Earl George came to
Douglas
just as he was thanking the knight for the loan of his horse and an offer of blending blood lines since their homes were close in Lothian.

George got
Douglas
’ attention and spoke in low tones. “We’ve seized an English spy.”

“Still alive?” asked
Douglas
quickly.

“Not
only that
but the ones who captured him tricked him into
tellin
’,” said George still being quiet.

“What’d he tell?”

“Swinton rounded Scots Gap last
evenin
’,” said George.

Douglas
smiled. “Must be in Otterburn by now!” cried
Douglas
with delight.

“Must be, I reckon,” agreed George breaking into a wide smile of his own.

“Means we can leave here ere dawn break,” said
Douglas
.

“And we will!”

Those who lingered on the wall overlooking the fairly vacant silage field were seething at the Scot’s celebrated whooping and they swore personal vengeance in the name of Hotspur. The ambient air was ripe with rancid loathing.

Sir Matthew Redman stood among those expressing such odium for the Scots but his disposition was secretly satisfying as he figured Hotspur had been due this comeuppance and even more.

Inside the thatched covered stable behind the castle proper Hotspur stood relatively calm. The attending farrier felt the black stallion’s left foreleg working his thin gnarled fingers down the length of the various muscle groups to the fetlock, he
payed
close attention to the horse’s reactions as he went.

The farrier then stood tall and hesitated, stroking his graying beard, wanting to make sure he had as good an opinion of the situation as he could consider, then he carefully spoke, “No broken bones… I reckon…he’ll be
a’right
after a while, Milord.”

Hotspur nodded, “You’ll stay with him?” he asked solemnly.
 

“Yes, Milord,” he replied, then caught in the moment he went far out on a limb adding, “Be
tendin
’ yer horse good my very self, Milord…
I promise
.”

“Best you
be
keepin
’ that promise,” jabbed Hotspur. “I would
not
like it if you disappointed me!”

“Never, Milord,” groveled the man, “
but…
”

Hotspur, having already turned to leave, looked back to the farrier asking, “
but
?”

“But… you must not ride him… ‘
til
I say.”

Hotspur growled. He did not like being at the demand of others however he did want the use of his prize stallion once again. Without a word in response he turned and walked from the stable.

“If your damned “hot” pride had not ridden him from the field he would be
mendin
’ all the sooner,” muttered the farrier when he at last stood all alone with the magnificent suffering warhorse, a bottle of herb liniment and several rubbing towels.

The man had little choice but to be optimistic about a cure for the horse because his neck would certainly be wrapped with a hangman’s rope if he failed.

Inside, Henry threw his ‘not so hot’ spurs onto the highly polished table, the rowels nicking the surface as they skittered.

The scars did not go unnoticed by the sitting mayor and town burgesses whose partial duty it was to see that the table remained in pristine condition.

Adam Buckham stood to address the congregation of gathered nobles with the question, “We have commercial boats from far off countries not docking because of this… repulsiveness… at our gate! They have seen rotting corpses casually floating by their hulls and they don’t want to get involved in our
mess
!”

“And what do you expect us to do about that?” growled the owner of the spurs.

“We want to get on with our business, Milord...” replied Buckham not flinching from Hotspur’s reputation. “Our town is over run by at least three times the population, Milord Warden… our sewage system is backing up from over use... Why is it we cannot take these many good English warriors within the walls and chase those few barbarous Scotch rabble from our gate?!”

A round of agreeing grumbles was heard from the burgesses.

“We think,” said Hotspur upon standing. He paused for the drama. “because of our spies’ reports… that this is just the van of a much larger main contingent headed by the Earl of Fife lurking here ‘bouts and these few are taunting us to come out in the open and fight them since they have no way to penetrate these walls.”

“On good authority, you say, Milord,” asked Buckham.

“As much as you can trust spies, I suppose,” replied Hotspur peering down his nose at the troubled governing body who dared to question his wisdom.

“And we’re loosing gold revenues on the word of spies you do not seem to totally trust?” chipped back Buckham.

“Bishop Skirlaw will be here… we think… tomorrow. Then as they arrive we intend to rush out from this bastion and crush them in the jaws,” he explained hitting his fists together to demonstrate his meaning.

“And what about
Fife
?” asked Buckham wondering.

“We will then have an equal force to take him and his ten thousand on in an open battle,” said Hotspur smiling at his own sense of importance.

The standing burgess still wondered. The mayor looked at Matthew Redman who had a seat at the table. “Do you think this is so?” he pointedly asked.

“Lord Percy has
spoken,
what more could I possible append?” replied Redman adding a reassuring smile.

He looked at Robert Ogle indicating he was asking him the same question. Ogle nodded even though he knew Redman was lying.

Ralph Lumley gave him the nod when the mayor looked at him as did Sir Ralph Eure.

Sir Ralph Percy was conspicuously absent having been sent on an errand to commandeer another destrier suitable for his brother to ride while his black stallion was on the mend.

They who were present were all supposedly in agreement.

“So, tomorrow will be the end of it?” asked Adam Buckham flatly.

“The Scotch
will
be beyond your town walls before the end of tomorrow,” said Hotspur not wanting to have to deal with the local government of gossiping busybodies again and so he finished his say with,
“I promise!”
and vaguely hoped he could manage to honor his word but did not care so much if the fickleness of circumstance changed his objectives.

His mind then swung back to the farrier’s words when he had added,
I promise
, to his say. He thought of Ralph and wondered if an apt destrier could be found so he could go against
Douglas
again on the morrow.

Adam Buckham and the burgesses filed out of the chamber leaving the few nobles alone.

Hotspur looked at the bedraggled, demoralized men and called a page for wine and food to be brought as he was expecting their thoughts to materialize into some sort of plan to which he could apply himself and his army on the morrow and knowing that any plan would be dependent on the bishop showing up with at least six thousand troops to add to the present numbers. On the other hand so much was dependent on the actions of the Scots who had dominated the scene since their abrupt arrival less than two days back.

Lord James Douglas, realizing his plunder had most likely reached Otterburn, gathered his thousand knights and men-at-arms, less those forty-three who had been killed upon the silage field, and prepared to leave heading in a north-westerly direction toward Otterburn to rejoin his gathering army.