Part 24 (2/2)
hooves, the jangle of harness, the sullen mutter of voices. Nothing daunted, Wallace spurred his horse forward, riding at a canter along the Scottish lines. Brandis.h.i.+ng his sword, he stood high in the stirrups where all could see him, and addressed his men in a ringing voice.
”Men of Scotland, I have brought you to the ring!” he shouted. ”Now let us see if you can dance!”
His challenge was answered with a cheer that could be clearly heard far to the south, where King Edward sat astride his great warhorse in the midst of his army. Despite a cracked rib, sustained during the night as he slept beside his horse at Linlithgow, the aging Lion of England had pressed forward at dawn.
Now, having heard Ma.s.s with the Bishop of Durham, who would command the right wing, Edward of England stared coldly up at the hillside with its great circles of bristling spears. Then he turned to the Master of the Templars, who had ridden up beside him.
”Your intelligence was correct, Templar. Wallace was trying to sneak up from behind and cuff my ear.
He will pay for that impudence, now that we have him in our grasp.”
Brian de Jay nodded in some satisfaction. ”Aye, Sire. He has positioned his army badly, leaving himself no room to maneuver. He is depending upon that ill-clothed rabble with their pig stickers to keep him safe.”
And if Comyn kept the remainder of his bargain, that ill-clothed rabble would be left defenseless, for the meager Scots cavalry-who included some of Scotland's most influential earls-would turn and flee without striking a blow. Jay had made no mention of that bargain, of course; and of the intelligence regarding the Scots position, he had given the king to understand that he and the Master of Scotland had come upon a skulking Scottish scout by happy chance, whereupon they had forced the prisoner to reveal the Scots position; the prisoner, alas, had died. It also remained to be seen whether Wallace could be taken.
The English host drew up before the somewhat innocuous stretch of marshy ground that lay between them and the Scottish schiltrons, squarely facing the enemy. The knights of the vanguard, under Roger BiG.o.d and Henry de Lacy, Earls of Norfolk and Lincoln respectively, took up position on the left, while Bishop Bek's Durham chivalry formed the army's right wing. Between were ranged the spearmen in their thousands, mostly Welsh, supported by bowmen armed with longbows and crossbows. With numbers so greatly in their favor, spirits were running high among cavalry and footmen alike, equally eager to test their strength against the foe.
The knights on both flanks were already edging forward when the Earls of Norfolk and Lincoln rode up from the vanguard to inform the king that they would soon be closing with the enemy, both men's faces flushed with antic.i.p.ation. Roger BiG.o.d grinned broadly as he gestured toward the Scots.
”They've obliged us, Sire, by forming targets so large that they will be hard, indeed, to miss. A single shot should strike the gold, I think.”
”Have you learned nothing from our clashes with the rebellious Welsh?” Edward answered coldly. ”Even an untrained peasant can face up to your hors.e.m.e.n if he can hold a spear straight.”
”Only if he has the nerve to stand his ground,” de Lacy replied. ”I swear to you, Sire, that we will rout them at the first charge and pay them back for our dead at Stirling Bridge.”
”The Scots aren't going anywhere,” Edward said, unmoved by his subordinate's fervor. ”And our men have scarcely eaten in the past day. There's time to put food in their bellies before sending them to the fight.”
”Sire, it's Scots blood they hunger for-not food!” BiG.o.d declared. ”They can no more be reined in now than a pack of hounds that have sighted the fox.”
”It can only hearten the Scots to see us waver,” de Lacy agreed.
Edward snorted-and winced at the pain of his cracked rib-but clearly, lack of sleep and food had not dulled the fighting edge of his men. On the contrary, it had lent an almost feverish intensity to their belligerence.
”Go, then,” he said. ”Clear the way for the bowmen, and then we'll make short work of those Scottish schiltrons.”
The two knights wheeled about and galloped back to join their men. Their voices echoed back up the lines as they shouted orders and began the advance.
”And you, Templar,” Edward said to Brian de Jay, ”can I trust in your bragging, as much as I can in your scouting?”
”Sire, I have promised to take Wallace for you,” Jay replied, ”and so I shall. I shall bring him in a cage, if need be.”
”There's no need to go as far as that,” Edward said dryly. ”His head is all I need.”
Jay inclined his head in a perfunctory bow and rode off to rendezvous with his fellow Templars, who were gathered some distance away to the rear of the main body of cavalry. Between himself and John de Sautre, they had brought twenty knights and serjeants, including the younger de Sautre. Many were less than happy to be part of an invading army waging war on fellow Christians-and a few were even Scots-but they were bound to the Master of England by vows of obedience, so none raised voice against him.
”We'll stay well back with the reserve, for now,” Jay said to John de Sautre. ”It isn't our job to hurl ourselves against a wall of peasants' spears. We'll bide our time, and strike when we can do the most good.”
”A prudent strategy,” said Robert de Sautre, ever the sycophant. ”Wait until they are at their weakest, then use our fighting prowess to deliver the killing stroke.”
John de Sautre was squinting ahead at the bristling schiltrons at the foot of the hill, and the sheen of watery meadow that lay before them. ”There will be killing enough, if our knights continue their direct advance,” he warned, ”but it will not be the Scots who will die.”
”What do you mean?” Robert asked, his dark eyes widening owlishly in his round face. ”Do you seriously think our knights incapable of overcoming the Scots, when only a ribbon of water stands between them?”
” 'Tis more than a ribbon of water, I'll wager,” John replied, pointing at the place where the two streams met. ”If the horses become bogged down in that, our knights will be easy prey to the Scots.”
”You are very likely correct, Brother John,” Jay agreed. ”All the more reason for us to hold back, and see if prudence or blood l.u.s.t rules the day.”
When the vanguard that was the English left wing came in clear sight of the marsh, the English earls were not so eager for the fray that they failed to discern the danger. Directing their column to veer sharply to the left, they skirted the edges of the boggy ground and continued toward the schiltrons. The English knights of the right wing, under Bishop Bek, also swerved wide to avoid the marsh, jostling and b.u.mping each other in their eagerness to be the first to engage the enemy. Bek saw them falling into disorder and tried to have his bannerets call them back to reform before charging, but his words of caution fell on deaf ears.
Ralph Ba.s.set, Lord of Drayton, rounded on the cleric and snapped, ”Go back and say Ma.s.s, Bishop, and leave us to the business of fighting!”
The two wings then headed for the outer schiltrons. Stationed to the rear of the two central ones, Wallace watched the English cavalry advance with a mixture of apprehension and satisfaction.
”So much for the marsh,” he muttered to Arnault.
”Aye, they'd have made fine targets for John Stewart's archers, if they'd been reckless enough to come wading through there,” Arnault replied, with a tinge of regret.
”Still,” Wallace said, ”they've yet to learn they can't come at us in a solid line. By forcing the wings to go around, we've broken them up so that they'll be coming at us piecemeal. If they wear themselves out charging against the schiltrons, then we'll have a chance to push them backward into the water.”
Arnault gazed down at the two huge columns of knights and could not help thinking that the plan was fine as long as his men could stand up to the initial attack-which was drawing nearer by the moment. The Scottish spearmen were bracing the b.u.t.ts of their weapons against the ground in readiness for the coming a.s.sault, and some of the archers were already making trial shots at the enemy, though to little effect.
Having pa.s.sed through the s.p.a.ce between the edge of the wood and the marsh, Roger BiG.o.d and Henry de Lacy were leading the left wing to the attack. The line spread out and the knights pressed their speed to a gallop, battle cries now lifting above the thunder of pounding hooves. The thunder grew louder, shaking the ground underfoot as the distance closed.
The men of the schiltrons braced themselves for the impact, tightening their grip on the hafts of their weapons with hands grown clammy with the waiting. The knights in their heavy armor, their horses protected with steel plate and leather, bore down on the footmen with their lances at the ready.
The line of cavalry broke against the first schiltron like a wave das.h.i.+ng against a rock, to the sound of screams rather than the ocean roar. Some of the horses s.h.i.+ed back before the bristling hedge of spearpoints, but others gashed their legs on the stakes or impaled themselves on the spear points of the Scottish front rank, who bent low to bypa.s.s the beasts' armor. The next rank of Scottish spearmen leaned forward over the shoulders of their companions, thrusting and jabbing at the riders. Some were run through and others were unhorsed, toppling to the ground to be either trampled or crushed by their companions.
On the other wing, the main body of Bishop Bek's knights likewise launched themselves headlong against the schiltrons, but they, too, broke against the wall of spears without budging the stubborn Scots.
Bellowing orders through the din, the warrior bishop succeeded in diverting a cohort of knights less hotheaded than those in the vanguard, and directed these against the more vulnerable ranks of the Scottish archers who were strung out between the spear formations.
The men of Ettrick stood their ground and launched flights of arrows against the oncoming ma.s.s of knights, but they were too few in number, and their weapons lacked the lethal penetration of the English longbows. Bek's knights charged in, skewering unarmored bowmen with their lances and crus.h.i.+ng them beneath the hooves of their steeds. The screams mounted as the archers began to give way.
”Why don't our cavalry attack?” Wallace demanded, tight-lipped, as he and Arnault craned for a better view. ”Stewart's bowmen are being slaughtered! Without mounted support, they cannot stand!”
”I'll go,” Arnault said.
Wheeling his horse, he made for the low knoll behind which the Scottish horse troops stood waiting. But when he topped the rise, he drew up aghast, for the majority of the Scottish knights had already turned their backs on the fighting and were rapidly dispersing from the battleground.
His arresting shout drew no response. Most of the hors.e.m.e.n were already beyond earshot. Among the banners far at the front, he could see that of the Comyns-gules, with three golden wheat sheaves-and suddenly, the likely reason for the younger Comyn's suspicious behavior the night before became all too clear: all part of a cunning betrayal, designed to leave Wallace at King Edward's mercy-and no wonder that Torquil, having apprehended it, had not been permitted to return to tell of it!
Now, betrayed as the prophecy had warned, the Guardian was fully committed to a battle probably beyond anyone's ability to salvage, and the loyal Scottish foot-the good, honest men of the community of the realm of Scotland- must stand alone against England's mounted might.
The sound of pounding hooves announced the arrival of Wallace himself, coming to investigate the delay.
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