Reiver

by David Pilling

  What of the Percies? Simple Tom was no friend to Forster. His family were Catholics, while he was a puritan of sorts, and he suspected them of trying to undermine his authority.

  He harboured darker suspicions. As yet his agents had found no solid proof, but he wouldn’t be surprised to discover Simple Tom was in league with the Catholics in Scotland. The Catholics of both kingdoms dreamed of placing Mary Stewart’s pert backside on the English throne. The might of the Percies in league with the reivers – Scots and English – and a Scottish army, could overrun the Border inside a week.

  As a test of Percy loyalty, he sent two men to raise the garrison at Alnwick. They would have to come out and help repel the Scots or face charges of cowardice and dereliction of duty.

  The soldiers thundered on. Another twenty riders joined them on the way, soldiers from tiny local garrisons and farmers or townsmen with their own horses and weapons. Forster swung north-west, thinking to intercept the Scots on their way home as they entered the foothills of the Cheviots.

  Soon he glimpsed the smoke from balefires on the distant heights. These were lit as warning signals whenever a band of reivers was spotted crossing the border.

  “The beacons are lit,” Forster shouted at his son. “Percy’s men must have had fair warning.”

  Nicholas smiled back. If the earl fell from grace, a sackful of rich lands and titles would suddenly become available. It would be a strange thing if the Forsters didn’t snap a few up.

  Before noon Forster glimpsed a tell-tale storm of dust, drifting over the low hills to the north. “On!” he shouted.

  Forward, over a ridge, and there the Scots were spread out below him. A long ribbon of lances and pennons, snaking through a deep valley. Forster’s veteran eye counted a hundred lances. Shabby reivers in blue bonnets and soldiers in bright steel. One rider carried the saltire, the famous x-shaped white cross of Saint Andrew against a blue field.

  Plumes of blackish smoke rose from the country they left behind, marking the villages and farmsteads they had burned. Somewhere among their column a piper played. The thin melody was carried on the wind to English ears.

  “This was no raid, father,” Nicholas muttered, “but an act of war. Invasion.”

  Forster bared his teeth. Rogue though he was, up to his neck in all kinds of blackmail and conspiracy and petty villainies, he was yet the guardian of his March. No man could say he neglected that duty. The sight of the saltire brazenly flaunted on his turf filled him with rage.

  “We have the advantage,” he growled. “Through the middle and cut them in half. Nicholas, fetch me yon saltire. I want to piss on it.”

  He put his hobbler to the slope. Bugles screamed the charge. Straight down at a flat gallop, riders thundering either side of him; lances in rest, pistols at the ready.

  The Scots were late in spotting the English. Forster cursed their discipline: instead of scattering in panic, as he wanted, they neatly divided into two companies, front and rear, and turned to meet the charge.

  Forster’s men still had the impetus of high ground. A great shout, one final screech of bugles. The English crashed into the thin line of Scots at a furious gallop. The Warden picked his man, a red-bearded lancer not ten yards below – fifteen – five – and gave fire.

  The bullet hit the Scot in the thigh. He doubled over, one hand clapped over the wound, the other still gripping his lance. Forster stuffed the dag back in its holster and drew his basket-hilted broadsword. He lashed out, struck the Scotsman from the saddle, dragged back on his reins and looked about him.

  His men had driven the Scots back across the narrow floor of the valley. A horse with an empty saddle galloped past, three or four bodies lay strewn about, the air was filled with shouted orders, screams and oaths and neighs of animal terror, clatter of steel, crackle and reek of gunfire.

  The momentum of the charge had swept past Forster. For the moment he was alone, with a clear view of both ends of the valley. To his horror he saw the Scots to the north re-form and wheel for a charge, lances levelled. He snapped his head round at the shrill note of a bugle from the south. The Scots there had also turned. Forster’s men, stuck in a wedge in the middle of the valley, tangled up with enemy horsemen, were about to be hit on both flanks.

  “Damn me for an old fool,” Forster muttered. His quick temper had always been his downfall. Now, provoked by the sight of a flag, it had led him to disaster. Even the rawest of junior officers wouldn’t have walked into such a trap. He should have stayed on the high ground and picked off the Scots with longbows until Percy’s reinforcements arrived.

  Percy… The old suspicion flickered through his mind. What if this raid was a conspiracy, cooked up between the Earl and his secret friends in Scotland? Perhaps they had intended to draw Forster north, relying on his famously brittle temper, and lure him to his death on Scottish blades.

  It was a clever plan. Worthy of a more subtle man than Simple Tom. Forster wouldn’t be the first Warden to die with his boots on. Few could suspect treachery or hope to prove it.

  There was no time to mull it over. The ground already shook beneath him. Wild yells split the sky as the Scots ploughed into the English. The hated saltire reared before Forster’s eyes, and then he was fighting for his life, hemmed in on all sides by horsemen. Swords and lances jabbed at his face. The half-moon edge of a Jedburgh axe clanged against the side of his helm. Dazed, he flung himself over the neck of his hobbler and spurred the beast onwards.

  She carried him clear of the ruck. The Warden blinked away the purple stars wheeling before his eyes, willed his head to clear. To lose his seat was fatal. He would be speared or trampled to death on the ground, like as not by his own men.

  Forster stayed low in the saddle. To rise was to present himself as a target and risk his head being sliced off. A horseman suddenly loomed over him. He lifted his sword to strike, then spotted the white band on the man’s right arm, stitched with the red cross of Saint George. All of Forster’s troopers wore these to distinguish themselves from the enemy.

  “Sir,” a rough Northumbrian voice boomed in his ear, “are you hurt?”

  Forster cautiously straightened in the saddle. His head ached, and there was a taste of blood in his mouth. A tooth was loosened, which was a shame: he had few enough teeth already.

  “I’m well, Rowden,” he said curtly, wiping the bloody spittle from his lips. By sheer good fortune he had blundered into a knot of his troopers. Six of them kept the Scots at bay, hacking with swords and jabbing with the staffs of their lances. His bugler, Rowden, and another soldier named Stainton placed themselves next to the Warden. Forster was relieved to see his son, Nicholas, was unharmed. Red in the face with exertion, the lad shouted orders at the men to close ranks.

  Forster squinted about him. On all sides there was a swirling, chaotic melee, dozens of individual combats, riderless horses, men grappling and stabbing each other on the ground. Both sides had discharged their pistols and now used them as clubs, battering at exposed faces with the heavy stocks.

  The English were making a fight of it, but Forster could see fresh reserves of Scottish horse drawn up on the northern flank of the hill. Once his men had tired, these would sweep down to finish the job. He had used the same strategy in countless skirmishes over the years.

  Forster turned to Rowden. “We have to get out of this,” he shouted above the din of battle. “Give the signal to retire. We’ll retreat back up the hill and hold them off from…”

  His words were cut off as something slammed into his thigh. Sharp pain coursed up his leg. Frowning, he looked down.

  In his rush to arm, Forster hadn’t bothered to don any leg-armour. An arrow was stuck into the flesh of his thigh, between the top of his boot and the ridge of his breastplate. Warm blood trickled down the fabric of his slashed hose.

  Forster suddenly felt light-headed. The arrow had red fletches, he noticed dreamily, swaying in the saddle.

  I’m too old for this. Too damned old. A man of sev
enty winters, still playing at Sir Lancelot. Still chasing brigands up hill and down dale. The younger men must think me a nuisance. Time to retire. To retire…

  But for Rowden and Stainton, he would have fallen. “Sound the retreat,” he muttered, clinging to their arms. “Sound, while there’s time!”

  Rowden raised his bugle and blew the signal. Forster’s well-drilled troopers attempted a fighting retreat up the flank of the hill. The Scots pressed them hard, and orderly retreat threatened to dissolve into a rout. Still in a swoon, Forster was carried away, shoved and hustled up the slope with six men guarding his back. Two were killed in the desperate running fight. The others shepherded him safely to the top, where a score of troopers spread out and unslung their bows.

  These were veterans, Forster’s best men. They worked calmly, notching arrows and taking careful aim before loosing them into the throng of Scots. Screams broke out where the deadly shafts hit their mark.

  Biting his lip against the agony in his leg, Forster slowly turned his hobbler to look down at the action. The flight of arrows had tumbled six or seven Scots from their saddles, and the rest gave back, retreating in good order to rejoin their comrades on the opposite spur of the valley.

  “Loose!” shouted Nicholas. “Knock over as many as you can, lads!”

  The bowmen needed no urging. They smoothly drew and shot, drew and shot, just as their forebears had done at Flodden and Agincourt and many other battlefields. Through a haze of pain, Forster counted fourteen Scots shot from their mounts. A couple of the horses fled, but most stayed beside the arrow-tufted bodies of their masters.

  Nicholas rode to the Warden’s side. “Some good horseflesh down there, father,” he said excitedly, “decent gear, and all. If we can hold out here, the bastards may draw off and leave us with the spoil – here, you’re wounded!”

  Forster limply waved away his son’s concern. “Never mind it,” he replied, “it’s nothing. We’ll have the arrow out after. Keep your mind on the task in hand. How many men have we lost?”

  Nicholas wiped the sweat and blood from his face. “Twenty or so,” he answered.

  Twenty. Over a third of Forster’s command was gone, dead or wounded. A few would live, still, among the scattered bodies on the slope and valley floor. The lucky ones might recover to fight another day. Most would die in agony or spend the rest of their days horribly maimed, forced to beg for their bread.

  The Scots were in no hurry to try another head-on assault. Why would they? There was no need for a fight to the finish. If he was in their commander’s shoes, Forster reflected, he would turn and ride hell for leather to the Border. The dangers of pursuit had to be balanced against the sheer folly of an uphill charge against expert archers.

  Unless they have unfinished business here. After all, I’m still alive.

  Another quarter of an hour passed, so he judged, while the two bloodied bands of horsemen stood and stared at each other. Both sides hurled insults, daring their foes to come on.

  “Traitor Scots!” Forster’s men roared. “Come up to fight – Yah! Yah! Yah!”

  “English loons!” the Scots shouted back. “Come and have your tails docked!”

  Forster had to smile at this: the old Scottish myth of Englishmen born with tails still persisted.

  Rowden dismounted and prodded gingerly at the arrow in Forster’s leg. “Just a graze, sir,” he said with a wan smile. “The cloth stopped most of it. Should come out nice and easy.”

  He busied himself with a bandage to stop the sluggish flow of blood. While the bugler fiddled with his leg, Forster forced himself to sit upright in the saddle. Keeling over into the mud would strike a death-blow to morale.

  Nicholas clapped a hand to his arm. “Father,” he said urgently, "listen.”

  The old man strained to hear. There it was. Bugles, and the thunder of hooves on the tops.

  Thank God.

  Seconds later a great roar went up from English throats. Forster glanced to the east. A wave of relief swept through him as the blue lion banner of the Percies flashed into view over the far side of the valley.

  Horsemen followed. Thirty-odd lancers, a stocky figure in burnished steel at their head, swarmed across the ridge. Behind them toiled maybe two score militia with swords and calivers.

  “Bows,” Forster croaked. Nicholas nodded and twisted in the saddle to give the order.

  “Archers – forward!” he bawled. The veteran bowmen cantered smartly down the slope to get within range of the Scots.

  Forster looked hard at the enemy. He knew indecision when he saw it. They dithered, uncertain what to do in the light of English reinforcements.

  They didn’t expect this. I’ll have that saltire yet.

  A rattle of gunfire echoed through the long valley. Puffs of smoke rose into the air as Percy’s footmen fired their calivers. The range was long, and the volley did little damage. Still, the Scottish horses were panicked, a rider or two thrown.

  The infantry jogged forward in ranks, swiftly reloading their clumsy weapons. At the same time arrows whistled from the hillside. More Scots fell. Bunched together, they milled about in confusion, looked to their captains for guidance.

  Forster nodded at his bugler. Once again the note to charge sounded, and the English riders on the hill flooded down the slope, leaping or avoiding the bodies of fallen men and horses.

  Attacked from two sides at once, the Scots elected to retire. The blue bonnets in the valley suddenly turned and galloped away north in full flight, the saltire at their head. Forster watched it go with a hint of regret. The banner would have made a fine trophy to hang from the rafters of his hall.

  Percy’s horsemen gave chase. Like a pack of hounds after deer, they went after the Scots at a furious pace, shouting and hallooing.

  “Call our lads back,” Forster ordered Rowden. “Let Percy play the slew-hound. We’ve done our bit.”

  At the signal to recall, most of his troopers halted and turned back. A few, seized by bloodlust, carried on the hurtling pursuit. The flurry of hooves and shouts and bugles gradually faded into the distance.

  “Best have that wound seen to, sir,” Rowden said anxiously.

  Forster agreed. In his fiery youth he had shrugged off wounds that would have felled a lesser man. Now, old and exhausted, the pain of it stretched him flat on his back. He lay on his coat, head rested against his morion, while Rawden got to work.

  As luck would have it, most of the force of the arrow was spent when it hit him. The impact was cushioned by the cloth of his hose, though the iron head had split the skin beneath and jabbed into his flesh. He gave an involuntary yelp as Rawden plucked it out with a sharp twist.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said, and set about cleaning the wound with cold water from his bottle before wrapping a fresh bandage around Forster’s thigh.

  Nicholas tramped up the hill on foot, leading his hobbler. “We’ve had a good look at the Scottish dead, father,” he said. “Kerrs of Cessford, most of them. As you thought. I recognised a couple of faces, the men others. A few we couldn’t identify. Government troopers, most likely. But…”

  “But?” Forster growled.

  “There are four Englishmen among the slain. Three Storeys and a Dunne.”

  Forster groaned. There was nothing unusual about English and Scots reivers riding together, but the Storeys and Dunnes were all Redesdale men – and staunch Catholics to boot. Their presence among a mixed bag of Scottish reivers and soldiers all but confirmed his worst fears of cross-border Catholic conspiracy.

  Soon the English horsemen returned, flushed with excitement and bloodletting. While they saw to their hurts, their commander dismounted, handed his pony to a soldier and approached the Warden.

  To his surprise Forster found himself looking up at the freckled, raw-boned features of the wrong Percy. This was not Simple Tom, Earl of Northumberland, but his younger brother Henry.

  “Good day, Sir John,” said Henry, touching the ridge of his burgonet in offhand salute
. “I see you’re hurt. Nothing fatal, I hope.”

  “If you had left it any later, Sir Henry,” Forster retorted, “my head would even now be decorating a Scottish lance. Where’s your brother?”

  “Laid up,” Henry replied quickly, too quickly for the Warden’s liking. “Aweek ago he ate some stale pork. His bowels have given him hell ever since. Never mind Simple Tom – the servants now call him Trumpeting Thomas.”

  Forster scowled at the forced merriment in the other man’s tone. “So you rode out in his stead. I see. Well, better late than never.”

  You’re protecting the earl, he thought angrily, laid up with bad guts! Do they think me such a fool?

  For now, there was nothing to be done. He owed Henry Percy his life, and any rash accusations would only lead to trouble. Time enough, when he was mended and safe in his own house at Hexham, to seek out the truth.

  *

  It was late afternoon on the following day before Forster rode wearily into Hexham. The ride home had been sheer torture. Every muscle in his ageing, overtaxed body protested, his head ached from the dint it took in the fight, and the pain in his leg throbbed ceaselessly. Every jolt in the saddle caused fresh bursts of agony.

  Henry Percy had invited him to stay the night at Alnwick. Forster, who would rather have set foot in a pit of snakes, politely declined. Instead he took lodgings at Harbottle, where he left his wounded soldiers to be tended by the local sawbones.

  At last he reached his own stable yard, where two grooms helped him down from the saddle. Jane, his wife, was at the back door to greet him. She paled at the sight of his bandaged thigh, but knew better than to fuss.

  Tweddle also hovered nearby, like a shabby crow. “You came home in one piece, then,” he whispered, cocking an eyebrow at his master’s sorry condition. “Just.”