Robert Low - The Lion Wakes

Which had all been his own fault. A ship arrived and those expecting food had found its cargo to be wine. To offset the disappointment, Edward had issued it to the army, the Welsh had sucked it up and, on empty bellies, had gone fighting mad – he’d had to let Aymer de Valence lead a charge of horse to bring order back and Welshmen had been killed. Now the rest were sullen.

The Devil with them all, Edward thought savagely. Let the Welsh desert to the Scots – at least then I will know the enemy and can shove them back into Satan’s arse, where they all fell from in the first place.

First – find your enemy.

‘No news, my Earl of Lincoln?’

De Lacy heard the mocking tone, but also the underlying desperation in it. If the Scots army was not found, and quickly, they would have to leave for the south and do it all again next year. The realm of England and its king, De Lacy knew, could not afford that.

‘Sir Brian de Jay and his Templars seek them out, my lord king.’

That, at least, was a fillip for the Crown – a handful of English Templars, seeking royal favour, had come to join Longshanks using the excuse that their actions had separated the Scots rebels from the community of the Church. Handily, Bishop Bek had readily agreed – though not many had been persuaded and the Scots Templars had been even more reluctant recruits, for all that their Scottish Master, John de Sawtrey, was with the army.

It did not matter – the Templars brought a fearsome reputation far in excess of their meagre numbers and, with two Masters riding at their head, brought God Himself to the side of the English host, now slathered round the lands of the Temple Commanderie at Liston, waiting for news of the Scots.

Yet the army, expensively and painstakingly gathered, was melting as fast as the costs were mounting, Edward thought – Christ’s Wounds, he had summoned men as long ago as February, while he was still conducting a war in Flanders, and sent them north to bolster De Warenne. There had been 750 lances and 21,000 foot at Christmas – and only 5,000 by the end of March, so that the whole business had had to be done again, using Welshmen and foreigners.

He wanted it done. He had a wedding to attend and it had cost him dear – a truce with Philip of France and a sixteen-year-old bride called Marguerite. Christ, he was nearly sixty – yet she had come with the real prize, a cartload of gold and the key city of Guienne, so he could afford to ignore the sniggers. Behind his back, of course, never to his face – but he heard them, all the same,

‘I will decide on the morrow,’ Edward said, disgusted at his compromising tone, turning away before any of the lords decided – foolishly – to press the point. Back in the cool of his panoply, he slumped in a curule chair, took wine and slopped it into his mouth.

All through the rest of the day, heavy with heat, hazed with woodsmoke, leather, horse dung and shit, the army sat and muttered, or dreamed of food.

Riders came and went; the sun slithered wearily to a glorious death and insects started to sizzle and die in the sconces.

Then, like the balm of rain, riders came out of the dark, forcing slope-necked horses wearily up to the king’s tent. They were Scottish and the guards were wary but, in the end, the leaders they escorted were presented to the king’s person and stood, stained with the sweat of hard travel.

Earl Patrick of Dunbar and Gilbert D’Umfraville, Earl of Angus, were Scottish nobiles who professed to be as English as Edward himself but he looked at them balefully, since he distrusted everyone. They saw the violet cast round his eyes, the sinister droop of one lid, and did not prevaricate.

‘Thirteen miles away,’ Dunbar declared.

‘In the Wood of Callendar,’ added D’Umfraville. ‘Beside Falkirk.’

Edward permitted himself a smile. Treachery, as ever, worked its wiles and he had found Wallace.

The woods at Callendar, near Falkirk

Feast of St Mary Magdalene, July, 1298

They were singing, which reminded Hal of the last time he had heard voices glorifying God – at Stirling, when they had been raised sweetly over the smell of churned earth, the stink of fresh blood, shite from horses and men and the high, thin acrid smell of fear.

‘Brabancons,’ muttered Sim knowingly. ‘Celebrating Mass.’

The whole English army was celebrating mass in the midst of some colourful tentage, as if there was no hurry. They had arrived like a great, slow wave that radiated power and numbers, so that Hal could see men near him shift in their saddles, looking uneasily from one to the other. Strathearn and Lennox, he saw, Mentieth and the Stewards, all trying to make their mouths summon up some spit.

There were retinues from Carrick and Comyn here, too, Hal noted – but no Earl of Buchan or any Badenoch or Bruce with them. Wallace saw the strained look on the Lothian lord’s face as he glanced at the small – God’s Hook, pathetically small – mesnie of Scots horse.

Aye, well may ye worry, young Hal, he thought bitterly. They all had good reasons for being elsewhere, none more so than Buchan, who had brought his men personally weeks ago, riding like a sack of wet grain and waspish as a damp cat.

‘I am with ye in spirit, Sir William,’ he had announced, ‘but I go to keep the north in order.’

‘Does it need so kept?’ Wallace countered and Buchan had merely smiled and flapped a dismissive hand.

‘It always needs order,’ he answered politely. ‘God keep you safe – and the English at a distance. Where are they anyway?’

‘Under the smoke they make,’ Wallace had answered laconically and had then watched Buchan ride away, looking right and left constantly. Looking for the Lothian lord, Wallace thought, So I know what business Buchan has and where. At least his quarrel with his wife and her new wee lover is a genuine, if selfish, excuse and not some callow tale like others presented to justify their absence.

But their lack had been noted by those of the nobiles who had turned up, sitting in their fine trappings on barded horses – few of them the fearsome and expensive destrier – feeling their bowels turn to water. Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist Um den rechten Glauben allermeist

It drifted on the wind, sometimes louder, sometimes fading, but a constant reminder of what Longshanks had brought. Thirty thousand, some said he had gathered – the largest army ever seen. Not now, the sensible heads pointed out, for there is less than half of it left.

But even that was more than enough and Hal could see the nobiles knew it. Brabancons, Gascons, Welsh spears and bows, the scouts reported with assurance – and, above all, three thousand heavy horse. We have ten thousand men, Hal thought bleakly, with only five hundred of it horse and not all of that fit to match the English knights if his own men were anything to judge – twenty hard fighters on tough little garrons, with latchbows, Jeddart staffs, daggers, little axes and less armour. Dass er uns behute an unserm Ende, Wenn wir heimfahr’n aus diesem liende.

‘Christ, I wisht they would be doucelike,’ said a voice, thick with fear. Hal swivelled; Sir William Hay of Lochwarret, desperate to wipe his mouth and face, kept raising his hand, then remembering his steel-segmented gauntlet and letting it fall again.

‘What are they chantin’?’ demanded Ramsay of Dalhousie, his bascinet-framed face the colour of spoiled suet.

Kyrieleis!

‘I do not ken,’ Wallace answered languidly, grinning, ‘but I jalouse they are done, so it matters little.’

‘Ye mun find,’ said a gruffer voice, ‘that they are calling on the Holy Ghost to protect them. It is also the first of several verses, so they are not done with it yet.’