The Complete Kingdom Trilogy (139 page)

He paused, feeling the madness of the moment as he sought to find words of consolation while shrieks and bellows and dying whirled round them; the ground was now a churned red mud.

‘I am sorry for your loss.'

Badenoch nodded, as if he had expected no more. Then he took a breath, as if about to plunge underwater, slid the domed helm over his head and reined back into the fray.

Wearily, trying to avoid the mad, plunging arrivals of the rest of the horse, Thweng led the limping Garm back across the blood-red mud to where the ground firmed and the dust billowed like cloth of gold.

Deep in the clacking forest of spears, surrounded by the grunts and pants and squealed curses, Tam Shaws thought this the worst moment of his life. He had thought this before, from the moment the heidman of Shaws had picked him for the wool path.

It was bewildering then. Tam, who had never been away from Shaws, had travelled down to Coldingham Shore with six others and the staple, that year's wool from Shaws. That had been a mazed journey, almost a dream to Tam and gilded with the knowledge that fifty pounds of the fleece-wrapped wool on those three pack ponies was his.

He remembered his old life as part of that same dream, now. At the height of that summer he had, with the others of the vill, driven the sheep in fours to the pool, ducked them, rubbed them with ashes, doused them with fresh water and then let the herders shoo them, complaining loudly, to a prepared fold in the hay meadow.

All that day the sun had smoked the water off them and the next Tam had joined in the back-aching work of shearing, trying not to scab them with careless clip and having to dab the wounds with hot tar when he failed. Then, their shaved arses daubed with a varying swirl of ochre shapes, the beasts were sent bounding and kicking back to pasture and men grinned wearily, backs aching but glowing with the knowledge that the job was done.

‘Up beyond the Mounth,' Davey's Pait announced, ‘they pluck the wool aff their sheep, like taking feathers from a chook.'

‘Away!'

But Davey's Pait swore he'd had the truth from his auld grandsire and they went off, marvelling at the work involved in plucking sheep.

When the wool was delivered safe to Coldingham Shore, where packmen would take it on to Berwick and beyond, the heidman had come to Tam and told him he was chosen again – this time to go as a sojer. Lord had picked Tam as the Shaws obligation to their liege, Earl Patrick, because Tam had no wummin or bairns dependent on him.

So Tam, done up like a kipper in a padded jacket and iron hat, a big, awkward spear in one hand and a dirk bouncing strangely at his hip, had endured the jeers of the others and knew it had been more out of relief that it was him and not them.

He had been handed two silver pennies for the journey, told to report to the steward at Dunbar's castle and announce that he was ‘the obligation from Shaws'.

Four years ago. Tam Shaws had thought, then, that the worst moment of his life was being sent as garrison, first to Edinburgh, then to Roxburgh, clearly never to be returned to Shaws after his forty days were up. He thought, often, of simply leaving but did not trust in the Law that much.

After a while, bitter as aloes, he realized he had been forgotten by the lord of Shaws and by God Himself; he had grown accustomed to the life, settled to it. Not long after that, the rebels had come to Roxburgh and Tam thought that had been the worst moment of his life, for he had come face to face with the dreaded Black Douglas and had actually surrendered the castle to him, because his commander was dying and unable to even speak.

He had, in fact, surrendered to a wee lord from Lothian, a man who had been prisoner in Roxburgh for seven years. Tam had been sure this Lothian lord would be vengeful but, to his surprise, the garrison survivors had all been spared. Sure of what would happen if he stayed in his old ‘obligement', he had switched and joined the rebels, which moment he had been sure was truly the worst of his life.

He had been wrong all along, he realized, looking round him at the blood and the shrieking. Nearby was Davey the Cooper, the man who had mourned the loss of his friend, the man who had cut the throat out of the blinded boy yesterday. Davey had three arrows in him, buried to the fletchings, and even as he knelt by him Tam heard the whirring hiss of more arriving. Like clippers and us the fleece, he thought, and then they hit, like stones thrown against a wet daub wall.

Someone behind Tam grunted as if slapped; the man in front seemed to have been hit by a forge hammer, lifted off his feet and flung past Tam like a loose-packed grain bag.

‘Up, lad.'

The voice dragged up Tam's head until the iron rim of the helmet dug into his shoulders. He saw the maille and the jupon and then the great, frowning, bearded face of the Earl of Moray himself.

‘No hiding place there, lad,' Randolph declared, as careless of the arrows as if they were spots of rain. ‘Besides, you are needed.'

An earl needs me. The thought made Tam get up, wobbling on shaky legs; he glanced out to where the enemy archers stood, on the far side of the steep-banked stream and with a clear shot. Randolph, with a satisfied grunt, turned away and shouldered into the struggling, howling mass of the schiltron as if he was only trying to get to a friend across a crowded courtyard.

The men in front of Tam suddenly seemed to tremble and stir, then braced with a great stream of sibilant curses – the English horse, spiked like shrike offerings, were being rammed into the wall of spears by the blind eagerness of those behind.

This, Tam thought, leaning his shoulder against the man in front and bracing, his head down at the man's waist, seeing shit-streaks down the naked legs and sucking in the stench of it, really
is
the worst moment of my life.

Kirkpatrick felt the pressure of his bladder and tried to ease the crush of maille and gambeson on it by shifting himself slightly in the saddle. That made the warhorse think movement and action was imminent, so it dragged the bit and jerked him forward. Cursing, he reined it savagely back, clattering lance against shield; the visor of his fancy new bascinet dropped with a clang and blinded him.

‘You need to pinch that.'

Kirkpatrick, fumbling with four things and only two hands, raised the visor into the sardonic grin of the Earl of Ross, sitting easily on his own mount. He made a gesture with one gauntleted hand, the lance locked upright in the crook of his arm and firmed into the stirrup fewter.

‘Smithing nips,' he elaborated, beaming. ‘Get your man to pinch the hinges a little, so that it stiffens and remains up until you want it down. That's what I did with mine.'

Kirkpatrick hated him and his good advice, hated the bloody warhorse which had cost an entire season's wool tolts and hated the beast's name – Cerberus – which he was starting to realize was because it had clearly been spawned in Hell.

Above all, he hated being here in the metal huddle of Sir Robert Keith's horse, nervous and awkward on a baiting destrier, being clumsy with shield and lance. Aware that his skills with weapons and horse were not only inadequate, but marked him as a rank beginner to the armoured men around him, he knew they watched and sneered, enjoying the sight of Bruce's loathsome ‘auld dug' trying to be a true knight of the realm.

‘Thank you, my lord,' he managed to grit out and Ross nodded politely, but then frowned.

‘Would you not be better with the baggage, Sir Roger?' he asked innocently. ‘For certes you seem a little out of place. Should you be here?'

Kirkpatrick, rocked back and forth by the head-tossing Cerberus, felt the rush of blood through him at this casual viciousness, washing away the cold sweat on his spine.

‘No,' he answered thickly. ‘For certes I should not. Nor any of us. Nor would I be if it had not been for those less than loyal.'

Which made the Earl of Ross jerk so hard with shock and anger that his own horse threw its head up and squealed. Kirkpatrick's smile was a twisted ugliness, for he thought Ross more than deserved the lick of a viperish tongue; here was the man who had been on the English side until recently, who had broken the sanctuary of a holy place to capture Bruce's queen and sisters seven years ago, sending them to captivity and Bruce's brothers to death.

And Isabel MacDuff, Kirkpatrick recalled suddenly. As well Hal is not here, since he would care even less than myself for Ross's rank. As the King should have done, instead of gathering this earl into his peace with a forgiving kiss … the things you do when you want to wriggle your arse to fit on a throne.

‘Bigod,' Ross spat out eventually. ‘When this matter is done …'

‘I will be back to my old tasks,' Kirkpatrick finished and Ross clicked his teeth shut in his sweating face, remembering the fearsome reputation of the King's right-hand man. He tried to pull his own visor down to cover his confusion, but it had stuck and Kirkpatrick grinned.

‘You need to loose the hinges on that,' he offered in a voice like poisoned silk. ‘I have a wee sharp dirk that will do it.'

There might have been more, save that a knot of riders flogged up and, with a shock, Kirkpatrick saw the blazing lion and the gold-circleted helmet. Bruce …

He watched, feeling sick, as Keith, Marischal of Scotland, kneed his mount close to the King, who spoke quickly and gestured once behind him with an axe – he has a new one, Kirkpatrick thought wildly. To replace the one he broke yesterday …

Then, with a rush of spit to his dry mouth, he realized the Marischal was detailing men – and one of them was himself. Sixty or so, he reckoned, with that part of his mind not numbed. He fumbled Cerberus after the trail of them, finding himself next to a knight bright with gold circles on flaming red. Vipond, he recalled. Sir William …

‘What are we to do?' he asked, feeling his voice strange. He was aware that, somehow, his lips seemed to have gone numb.

‘Chase away that wee wheen of bowmen,' Vipond replied gruffly, ‘who are annoying the Earl of Moray.'

The bugger with the Earl of Moray, Kirkpatrick wanted to say. Let him look to himself …

‘Dinna fash,' Vipond said and Kirkpatrick realized he had been muttering to himself and felt immediately shamed, another great rush of heat that made him dizzy.

‘Stay by me, my lord,' the knight said, smiling a sweat-greased sickle on to his face. ‘You will be as fine as the sun on shiny watter.'

‘Form.'

Kirkpatrick found his hands shaking so hard that he could not make them do anything, but the loose visor of his bascinet clanged shut as if he had ordered it; the world closed to a barred view, as if he was in prison.

He heard the command to move at the trot and did not seem to do much, but Cerberus knew the business and followed the others; he heard his own ragged breathing, echoing inside the metal case of the helm, turned his head a little and saw Vipond sliding his great barrel heaume on, becoming a faceless metal ogre.

‘On –
paulatim
,' he heard and Cerberus surged forward so that the cantle banged Kirkpatrick hard in the back. He felt the warm, sudden, shaming flush as his bladder gave way.

Nyd hyder ond bwa
.

They roared it out as they nocked, savaged strength into their draw with it and shrieked it out on the release of the coveys of whirring death they sent into the men struggling in their ragged square of spears.

There is no dependence but on the bow.

Addaf, striding up and down behind his men, streamed with sweat and his clothes stuck to him as if he had plunged into the stream they had just crossed. All the men were dark with stains, but there was no water in that stream, only a slush of bog at the bottom, ochre pools that stank.

Yet the sides were steep enough that men had had to haul themselves up by the choke of weeds – but it had been worth it, for they were now given a clear shot straight into the left of the rebel ranks.

The ripping silk sound of the arrows fletched away into the great roar of the battle and Addaf clapped a shoulder here, patted another there and bawled out for them to be steady, aware that there were not enough of them.

He looked across, trying to pick out one of the Berkeley lords; he needed more bowmen – even the Gascons with their silly, slow latchbows would do.

He turned and put a hand on the shoulder of Rhys, planning to bawl the message in his ear and have him repeat it before sending him away; it took him half a sentence to realize that Rhys was neither listening, not shooting, but staring, his mouth slightly open.

Addaf followed his gaze and felt as if he had been struck by lightning. Horses. Riders were coming at them, fast, and the banners they flew were all blue and white, red and gold.

‘Away,' he roared and was astonished to hear a scream of outrage – and another voice, raised in shrill counter to his command.

‘Stand. Shoot. Kill the heathens.'

Y Crach, shaking with fervour, glared at Addaf and pointed his bowstave at him.

‘You run if you wish, old man.'

Addaf felt the rage in him, so rushed that it seemed the top of his head would explode and shower them all with the foul thoughts surging in it. Hywel, Y Crach, the whole sorry mess … he was, in the one small part of him still calm and sane, astonished to see the vale of Cilybebyll there in his head, the patch of land he had once owned and had not been back to see for decades. The ache was like a sudden blow.

Y Crach had not realized the old man had it in him. He knew he had badly miscalculated when the hand reached out and gripped the front of his tunic. The shoulder muscles, honed to a hump by years of pull and not yet completely ravaged by age, twitched like a horse's rump and Y Crach felt himself fly.

Men gawped as the scabby archer whirled to the edge of the steep-sided stream, then vanished over it with a despairing yelp.

‘
A fo ben, bid bont
,' Addaf roared, his red face scattering sweat drops and spit.