Robert Low - The Lion Rampant

‘Protect the King.’

The cry went up and the armoured riders closed round Edward to force another great surge of milling foot to part like the Red Sea.

Protect the King. Addaf hawked and spat.

Let God protect the King of the English, he added to himself, though it was clear to everyone that He had removed His Hand from them this day.

And the Welsh. Addaf found out how poorly the Welsh stood in God’s Grace less than an hour later.

That was when they turned at bay to face the pursuing Scots riders, who had been closing in for some time, held up by knots of scattering foot. Those running spearmen contributed less than nothing to the day, Addaf thought bitterly, and now they are getting in everyone’s way, us as much as the Scots.

‘Dismount.’

Addaf heard the shout and cursed; Maurice was speaking earnestly to de Valence, who trotted after the knights huddled round the hunched figure of King Edward. Addaf watched the blue and white striped trapping of the de Valence’s horse flap heavily, sodden with blood, streaked and torn. None of the knights left to the King looked any better, he realized, which is why the work is now given to us. Welshmen protecting the King of the English — the savage irony of it was not lost on anyone, as Addaf saw from the sullen embered looks.

‘ Nyd hyder ond bwa ,’ he shouted and the Welsh laughed, though it was bitter, as the horse-holders took the mounts and the others sorted themselves out.

There is no dependence but on the bow — Addaf had always held that to be a fundamental truth, but he did not think there were enough bows now. He looked at the line of them, counting: twenty shooters, perhaps, no more. Ahead he saw running men and recognized them as Hainaulters, trying to scatter from the path of the oncoming riders.

He raised his bow so that he could judge the wind from the trail of ribbon — there was one, by God’s hook, a blessed breeze suddenly blowing cool in the sweating dragon’s breath day. Addaf turned to where Sir Maurice sat like a sullen sack on his big horse.

‘ Dduw bod ’n foliannus ,’ he grunted — God be praised. Maurice, who had been around the Welsh long enough, stared unpityingly from eyes miserable with loss and gave him the rote response in Welsh.

‘ In ois oisou .’ For ever and ever.

The last Hainaulters staggered out of the path of the riders — sixty, Addaf thought with a sudden bowel-curdling chill. Or more. He saw the banner flying above the sweat-foamed garrons they were riding and anger burned up in him — stars on blue, the mark of the Black Douglas himself. He remembered his men, dead and dying in puddles of their own blood, spilled from the stumps of the right wrists Douglas had chopped off with an axe.

‘Draw.’

There was the familiar sound of drawn strings, that creaking-door rasp.

‘Shoot.’

The air quivered and thrummed. Addaf saw horses and men fall, saw the others veer left and right, reining round and flogging their mounts out of range. He looked up at Sir Maurice and had nothing back but a poached-egg stare and knew they would stay here for a time, letting the King put some distance between himself and his enemies.

He looked at the sky, saw clouds building up like bulls herding in a paddock, felt the breeze, a freshening balm on his face. It was a good day, he thought, to stand peaceful and cool …

The Hainaulters staggered away. More men followed, a few riders, a handful of horses — all fleeing from the Scots, who stayed out of range, waiting. More of them came up.

‘Mount.’

The sigh was audible.

‘ Dduw bod ’n foliannus ,’ Addaf grunted, but did not turn around or move, deliberately waiting until everyone else was in the saddle and already moving off. Last to leave the field of battle, he thought to himself proudly. Does no harm to let folk see that …

‘ In ois oisou ,’ said a crow-harsh voice and, surprised, Addaf turned.

He had time to see the twisted knot of savage vengeance that was the bruised face of Y Crach before the scything arc of blade whirled into his ribs, driving air, sense and light out of him, all at once.

Hal was left only with the smith, stolid and determinedly stumping along in the wake of Cornix; all the others had dropped off, one by one, half-apologetic, half-ashamed. Chirnside, Sore Davey, Mouse — all lured by the glint of gold spurs, or the sight of a ring on a dead finger.

Hal shifted in the saddle and looked at Davey of Crauford, holding up the great silken Beauseant banner, so fine it rippled like maiden hair in the sudden breeze. Lay brother though he might only have been, the smith was proud as any deadly sin at being chosen to carry this, the famed Order banner, in what was its last flutter on a field of battle.

‘Tear that aff its pole,’ Hal said, more harshly than he had intended, but saw the sad regret in Davey’s eyes and felt a flicker of sympathy.

‘Fold it up,’ he added more gently. ‘I ken where to take it when this is done with.’

Aye, and Rossal de Bissot’s sword as well. The anonymous black brothers of Glaissery could keep their venerated relics in secret, for they had no part left in the world of men.

He heard the clang and spang of metal even as he rode on, leaving Davey to his task, the horse threading its own path through the groaning, slathered mass of spilled bodies, the blood making a sucking mud that stained the feathering on its hooves.

Two men fought still — well, one did, while the other, white hair whisping in the breeze, seemed to be at his last, down on one knee and weakly fending off the wild blows. If his opponent ever gathers himself of sense and strength, Hal thought, yon wee auld man will be carved like a joint at table.

He was filled with the useless waste of it; the battle was done and he was sure Bruce had won it, so this was a pointless exercise and he was about to shout that when he saw the horse draped in its trapping and bright still with heraldry.

A blue shield with the cross of St Andrew — Hal knew that mark and that Kirkpatrick had not had time to change it on the horse trapping or his surcote, though his actual shield wore that arrogant hand holding a bloody dagger.

‘Ho,’ he bawled and the pair sprang apart, the old man — Kirkpatrick, Hal now realized — falling backwards and lying outstretched on the bloody grass like Christ crucified.

The other was Badenoch. Hal saw it at once and the shock of it was a sickening thrill at this, the clearest indication of the Hand of God. Badenoch, who had watched Kirkpatrick kill his da, who had stood there as a gawky 17-year-old youth while Kirkpatrick was restrained from killing him, too. By me, Hal thought. By me.

Now he is grown to prime and has killed Black Roger. A great surge of feeling swamped Hal, a wave crested with the knowledge that he had let the youth live then, to visit his vengeance on Kirkpatrick. The Christ-crucified vision of the man lying there roared luridly into his head and he hissed the Templar sword out of its scabbard.

Badenoch saw Hal, saw the smith behind him and the scatter of men, coming up hard from their plunder and trying to make up for their shameful greed by being first back to Sir Hal’s side. He sprang for Kirkpatrick’s horse like a hare, was in the saddle and reining round in a fluid movement.

It was all the spur needed; before he had thought, Hal was after him.

He raked Cornix into a jagged canter, weaving as best he could between the scatter of bodies; once or twice the big horse swerved and hare-hopped before struggling on after the fleeing Badenoch.

Headed the wrong way, Hal thought triumphantly. Keep going and you will run into the Forth …

There was a great growling roar and a sudden flash which jerked Hal’s head up and made the horse falter and stumble. Thunder and lightning, he registered, and then they were bursting through some low bushes, into the kicked-up haze still swelling from Badenoch’s mad gallop, the motes dancing in it. The light had gone strange and yellowed.