The King Must Die (The Isabella Books)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “Same as before.” His voice cracked with fatigue and he sank to his haunches. “First, we must find them.”

  I swung a leg over my saddle and slid to the ground, clutching the cantle to keep from falling. “It seems it would be easier if they found us.”

  Mortimer’s lip twitched, as if to answer. But instead, he flopped over on his side with a grunt and curled into a ball, pulling his wet cloak over his head.

  ***

  For days it rained. Heavy, relentless rain, stabbing the misery sharply into the marrow of our bones. Food was quickly becoming scarce, for we had each packed no more than a few days’ worth and much of that had been ruined by the rain and the sweat of our horses. We drank from the rivers, brown and gritty with silt, and took sleep when we could. Armor rusted, although we dared not abandon it, and leather became so rotted that straps and cinches were in danger of breaking.

  Always, they were one day ahead of us, the hoofprints fresh in ankle-deep mud. Gentle valleys became seas, as streams overflowed their banks, and bogs lay all about in scattered pockets, impassable and reeking of stagnant water. The Scots’ looping trail wandered up and down hills, dove deep into forests, and crossed stream after stream. Pressed hard, many a horse went lame. Daily, we left some of our men behind, some ill, some whose horses had sunk belly-deep in the muck. As we rode off, we knew there was every chance the Scots would fall upon them and murder them.

  Our formation disintegrated with each passing day, until our column straggled out far behind, more a scattering of clumps than orderly lines. Those who had somehow kept up their strength forged ahead, while those whose spirits were lagging trailed behind.

  One night—I don’t know how many days ago it was that we had left camp, for every day seemed much the same—we bedded down in a thick woods somewhere in the valley of the River Gaunless. We knew they had been here, because villages had been ransacked and there was no shortage of victims to attest to their ruthless brutality. Still, we were in danger of losing them altogether. The trail that day had been nearly washed away, even though the rain had lightened and eventually stopped.

  Someone had gathered wood and after much flint striking, a smoky fire sputtered. As tired as I was, sleeping on the hard, wet ground held no allure. Lightheaded from not eating, I stretched my palms toward the fire and dreamt of a table heaped high with food and a dry bed piled with pillows. Either we had to find them and fight—or go back home. If we left, they would run rampant and burn every town between here and Newcastle. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “I would grant a lifelong fortune,” I thought aloud, “to the man who could track them down.”

  Kent and Norfolk stood on the other side of the fire, their faces sallow in the wan, amber glow. They looked at each other.

  “Why not send out more scouts?” Kent said.

  Clasping my hands together, I looked up, smiled. “Yes, why not?”

  I offered up the challenge to any who would accept. It would only take one man to find the Scots and return with word of their whereabouts for us to succeed and end this frustration. In the end, only one man came forward: Thomas Rokeby. He rode off at dawn as the first pale slice of sunlight in what seemed like weeks beamed from the east.

  The next afternoon, he stumbled horseless into our makeshift camp, his face purpled with bruises and a jagged line of blood oozing across his forehead.

  Mortimer strode forward and looked him over. “I take it you found them?”

  Rokeby clenched his trembling knees with filthy hands. Mud caked his legs and arms, as if he had traversed a bog and fallen more than once. “More like they found me.”

  My gut was grinding with emptiness, my head pounding with an ache that made it hard to think. I glanced at Mortimer, but he was intent on hearing what Rokeby had to say.

  “You saw Douglas?” Mortimer said.

  “Spoke to the devil himself.” Rokeby’s fingers probed the swollen flesh beneath his left eye. Next to it, a smear of dried blood ran from temple to jawline. Standing, he swiped a hand across his face and gazed intently at me. “Says he’ll wait for you, my lord, on the banks of the River Wear.”

  At last!

  “Show the way,” I told him and went to my horse. My knees folded beneath me. I flailed a hand out, catching hold of my stirrup, and quickly righted myself. My mounting weakness made me wonder if they were as hungry as us.

  Damn Douglas to hell and back. I will not let him jeer at us from across the river, then run home laughing. He will bleed his last drop of blood on England’s soil—or be the death of me.

  ***

  They were perched, like crows sunning themselves, atop a steep outcrop on the other side of a loop in the Wear. Thousands. An array of demons, with their flowing hair and naked arms. Whooping and waving their hands high in the air.

  Norfolk tusked and shook his head. “Out of bowshot.”

  “Which is precisely why he’s there,” Kent added. He cinched his sword belt tighter, so it no longer drooped low on his thinning hips.

  We stood in the broad plain of the river across from them, holding the reins of our horses. Without fodder and the grass gone scant because of all the mud, our beasts’ ribs were showing. The journey had been as hard on them as us. My steed hung his head low between bony withers. He sniffed the grass, brown with mud where the water had flowed over it, and snorted loudly. I slipped my fingers through his silver mane to untangle the knots, but they were so many I gave up the cause. I had discarded most of his trappings days ago, not wanting to burden him to the point of lameness. Yet every night, I had slept in my armor, mindful that we were probably being watched. How else had they known where to go to stay ahead of us, always out of reach?

  “My lords.” Mortimer’s armor, like the rest of ours, was dulled and pitted with rust. Still, he carried himself with his shoulders back, his chin thrust slightly forward and his eyes, hard as flint, taking in everything around him. His helmet was tucked beneath his arm, ready to be donned, should some stealthy Scot hiding in concealment let loose an arrow. “They’ll stand there taunting us like that forever if we let them. No, they’re not likely to advance. But we could strike.”

  Norfolk scoffed. “Suicide. By the time we get our horses across the bridge —”

  “You’re thinking like a knight eager for glory, my lord.” Mortimer tried to suppress a grin. “But truly now, what is our greatest weapon, the one that will endanger neither your life nor mine?”

  Kent threw a look back toward our forces, nodding thoughtfully. “We’ve enough archers with us ...”

  “But they’re out of bowshot!” Norfolk jabbed a finger toward our foes, safely positioned. Wide-eyed at the outburst, his horse tossed its head back and pulled away. The earl yanked the reins closer, holding firm until the animal settled. “Come now, Sir Roger. You’re speaking in riddles.”

  “Then let me speak more plainly.” Mortimer turned to me. “Send a detachment of archers to the other side. If the Scots fly down from their eyrie, the archers can rain arrows on them and half will be dead before they ever come within an axe’s throwing distance.”

  “And if the Scots flee?” Norfolk said.

  “If they run, why would we let them go?” Mortimer leveled him with a gaze so stern and commanding that Norfolk cringed. “We would cross the bridge with our cavalry then and give chase. A month we’ve spent wandering this land, hampered by rain and mud, and they’ve never been as close as they are now.”

  As if they had heard him, a thousand voices rose as one from across the plain. They shouted insults, but their unintelligible words all tumbled together in a deafening roar. Soon, they were thrashing their swords against their small round shields in a rhythmic ‘thump, thump, thump’ that pulsed across the valley and rattled the heavens. I prayed that God might reach down and flick them into the river with one angry sweep of his fist.

  A hand alighted on my shoulder. Startled, I jerked my head toward the pressure. Kent leaned close, his fingers pinching harde
r in order to draw my attention away from the jeering horde.

  “Send the archers,” he said.

  It was a command, not a question.

  I nodded obediently. “Very well. Send them.”

  But even as I gave the signal, my gut tightened. I wondered if we should wait awhile before taking action, for it was an impulsive move, however logical it may have seemed. I knew enough of the Black Douglas’s ways to know that he never acted without a plan. Surely, Mortimer knew that, too?

  Kent and Mortimer strode off to give directions, while my uncle Thomas and I looked on.

  Norfolk scratched at the scraggly beard covering his unshaven neck. “Perhaps they don’t think we’ll take the first move? Perhaps they’re only bluffing?”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps.” Then, I mounted my horse and waited.

  The sun was just past its peak when two hundred archers and a host of men-at-arms streamed across the narrow bridge, bows strung and ready. Had we encountered the Scots just a day ago, while the rain was still coming down, their strings would have been too wet for use. Today, for once, luck was in our favor. I scanned along the hill where the Scots stood, a hill so steep it may as well have been a cliff. My eyes paused from time to time on a figure with dark hair or a helmet that might hide Douglas’s identity, but there was no clear indication who was in command of the rabble.

  “What day is it?” I asked Norfolk.

  “The thirtieth of July,” he said, pulling the chin strap of his helmet tight. “Why?”

  “I just couldn’t remember how long ago we left, is all.” It had been a month since we’d departed from York and I had yet to receive any word of Philippa or the dispensation. Odd how at times like these, such thoughts invaded my mind.

  In disciplined precision, the archers arrayed themselves along the far bank, soldiers at their backs and waiting with swords held firm. Still, the Scots shouted their fiendish cheers. The echo of the pulsation reverberated from hill to hill, swallowing itself. The cadence of their thumping on iron-studded targes grew faster and faster, until one strike was indistinguishable from the next. The soles of my feet tingled. Soon, I felt a throbbing in my knees. The ground beneath my horse vibrated and I clamped my knees tighter to stay in my saddle.

  The archers drew the first arrows from their quivers, raised their bow staves to the sky, and then took aim at the cliffs above.

  Norfolk maneuvered his horse closer to mine and kicked me in the calf. He raised a gauntleted hand toward a break in the rock face of the outcropping, not a hundred strides from where our lines stood. There, on the other side of the river, a sizeable host of Scots rose in unison from a crouching mass. And among them, a knight on a dark horse, shouting orders. From beneath his helmet peeked a fringe of black hair, barely visible at the nape of his neck.

  “Back!” At river’s edge, Kent spurred his horse, riding fast toward the bridge, shouting over and over, “Call them back!”

  Before our archers could discharge a single flight, their captain called the order to retreat. In staggers, the archers lowered their staves, looked about. The retreat began as a trickle, but in seconds they turned like a wave breaking upon the rocky shore, shoving and stumbling over the soldiers behind them, who had yet to recognize the fast-approaching threat. Swords held fast, the men-at-arms stalled in confusion. Then they, too, turned and ran.

  Hundreds of Scots poured out from the gap. Their war cries cutting across the distance, shredding the air. Axes, keen for English blood, glinted in the sunshine.

  My throat constricted. I couldn’t breathe. I bit hard on the inside of my cheek, hoping I wouldn’t pass out. My hands trembled—with fear, anger, disappointment ... I wasn’t sure. Finally, my chest heaved and I gulped a mouthful of air.

  “No. No!” I pounded a fist against my thigh. “He will not do this to me!”

  Hooves rumbled across the earth. Mortimer and Kent reined their horses to a halt before me.

  “Send a delegation, sire,” Mortimer said. “Bargain for peace.”

  My fingers flexed, clenching and unclenching. My breaths came in gasps so rapid, I was nearly panting.

  Behind us, row upon row of mounted knights sat watching in shamed silence as the last of our soldiers, splattered with mud up to their ears, straggled across the bridge. The Scots halted partway across the marshy field and whirled their weapons above their heads. Scottish spears jabbed heavenward in triumph.

  “Bring me a messenger.” Blood throbbed in my temples. Fire raged in my veins. A messenger hurried forward and knelt before me. “Tell him ... tell him to come down from his position, cross the river and when we are both arrayed on the open field, face to face, he can fight us on even ground. Neither side will strike a blow or give chase until then. He has my solemn word.”

  Mortimer expelled an audible breath. He steadied his voice, lowered it, as if speaking to a child. “I remind you, sire, that Bannockburn was lost, in part, because your father positioned himself with a river at his back. Douglas was there. He won’t agree to —”

  “My father was a fool! Now tell him what I said!”

  The messenger dipped his head, nodded once, and rode off.

  Neither Kent nor Norfolk spoke for a good long while. I think they dared not.

  Earlier, I had done as Mortimer suggested, even though my intuition begged me otherwise. No, I would not let them—Mortimer or anyone else—lord over me again when doubts begged examination.

  Kings do not cower in the face of battle. And kings do not bow to their underlings.

  Half an hour later, the messenger dismounted and knelt before me, his knees squelching in the mud. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than me.

  “His reply?”

  He gazed up at me through a tangled mess of sandy locks. “Lord Douglas said: ‘The king can see we are in his kingdom and have laid waste to it. We shall stay so long as it pleases us. If he likes that not, then let him come over here and address the matter.’”

  7

  Young Edward:

  Stanhope Park — July, 1327

  I awoke to a demonic howl. A keening ... something otherworldly.

  Rain slapped against the low roof of my tent. The odor of moldy rope and rotten leather invaded my nostrils. I placed a hand on the ground to push myself up. Mud oozed between my fingers. Forcing cramped muscles to unbend, I sat up, feeling the unwelcome restraint of my armor—a reminder of where I was and how long we had been here.

  Breath held, I listened, waited. Except for scattered coughs or the nickering of horses, the camp was silent. Soon, the sound came again: a long bellow, rising in pitch. Trumpets, not demons. Then, I heard the banging of swords on shields and shouts from the far side of the river.

  For a few hours, I had forgotten.

  Nine days we had sat here—watching them watching us. And every blessed night, they sounded those infernal horns, at intervals so erratic it was maddening. Sometimes they would blast them just once or twice, and then fall silent. An hour later, the same again. We might have slept in shifts during the day, but they were always there, mocking and shrieking as the deluge continued. Whenever the rain stopped, their cooking fires blazed high and the faint aroma of charring meat drifted across the distance to us.

  The only advantage we had gained during the standoff was that the Earl of Lancaster had arrived with supplies, including my own tent so I could at last sleep someplace dry. He’d also brought along a pair of Sir John’s cannons. But much of the food, like our spirits, had soured. Yesterday I had feasted on a bland stew of beef and cabbage, washed down by a horn mug of watered wine, only to have it all run clean through my innards by nightfall.

  The cannons might have proven more useful, but it was impossible to ignite them in a downpour. Every day, the bastards stood on their hilltop far beyond reach, taunting us with their mere presence. Sir John insisted on firing the cannons to make a display of their power. With a thunderous belch, the iron balls arced into the air, propelled at an amazing s
peed, then slammed into the soggy earth with an unimpressive thud, leaving craters a hundred paces short of their mark.

  I cradled my head in my hands. My skull throbbed with pain. My thoughts were muddled from lack of sleep.

  The noise had stopped. So had the rain. For once, the trumpets were not bringing the sky down. Blissful quiet enveloped me. I blinked, clutched for a blanket that was not there. Like everything else, water had seeped into it and so I had tossed it in the corner, hoping to spread it under a warm sun tomorrow to let it dry. My stomach churning, I lay down and closed my eyes.

  Somewhere in Hainault, my sweet Philippa was asleep, her milky limbs tucked between a down-filled mattress and a freshly laundered blanket, perhaps dreaming of me, of our life together in England.

  Only ... not this England.

  ***

  “Douglas! Douglas!”

  Praying it was only a nightmare, I slapped at my cheeks to bring a rush of blood to my hazy head.

  Hooves clattered. More shouts. Then ... sword clanged against sword, struck flesh. Chaos. The cries of the wounded.

  My heart clogged my throat. The realization struck me with the deadly force of one of Sir John’s cannons: we were under attack. Swallowing hard, I groped in the darkness for my sword. Frantic, I flailed my hand in a wider circle, my palm swatting at a mat of crushed grass. Then, my fingers smacked against my shield. My bones screamed in pain. Great, burning throbs. I pulled my hand to my chest and tried to move my fingers, but couldn’t.

  The sounds were coming closer, growing louder.

  “Kyrie, eleison,” I chanted. “Kyrie, eleison. Kyrie —”