Games of Otterburn 1388

by Charles Randolph Bruce

  Robert somehow hoped he would live but that thought was dashed when another English knight’s free running destrier stomped the man on his chest knocking the wind, blood and life from his body in a single step.

  William used his goodly bulk to hit a passing Englishman across the back of the neck. His chain mail held but the stroke broke the man’s neck and he flew off his fast going horse.

  The men-at-arms moved ahead of Robert and William and using their long spears they pounded the English warriors off their mounts while others of their ranks used their swords and daggers to make short work of their lives.

  The English fought back as hard as they could but in the long run they were no match for the well trained and disciplined Scots who lost only seventeen to death and wounding while there was but five of Clifford’s English left who yielded to Robert and William.

  The five were sent back to Appleby with an unwritten message for Baron Clifford. He became angrier than ever.

  At first notice Maude found a hiding hole where she could not be found but she did hear the screams of the scullion servant that had been snatched up by the hair to be punished in her stead. She prayed in hushed fearful whispers for forgiveness for her hiding and for courage to achieve her bloody revenge.

  August 15 - Early Morning

  The Countryside North of Durham

  It was before daylight when Mungan awoke. He stretched his sore arms and stood. His wool covering began to move. He pulled it back revealing Adara’s curly head.

  “Ye sleepin’ ‘til full sunup?” he grumped in a teasing manner.

  She sat up and smiled at her savior.

  “Most of the camp is aroused a’ready,” he said, “Ye’ll have to hurry.”

  She hopped up fast and Mungan rolled the blanket.

  She went a few paces away and raising her long dress, squatted.

  Mungan began to saddle his warhorse and felt lost without his spear he had carried for the past year or so. He was figuring to whittle another when he got home but the highlands of Scotland were a long way off. His sword skills were not near what he could do with a fourteen foot spear with his weight behind it.

  “Ye got a poke of oats?” asked Adara coming to Mungan.

  He lifted the flap on his pouch strung to his waist inviting her to take what she wanted and she did.

  “Need water ere ye choke,” he advised handing her a skin of water.

  She gladly took the liquid and washed down the brief repast. “Ye a’havin’” she asked.

  “Still full of the beef,” he said bridling the horse.

  “Ne’er ate so much in a good while,” she commented as she pulled the saddle’s belly strap tighter.

  “Ye like raidin’?” he asked.

  A smile broke across her face. “I like it,” she admitted. “English treated me poorly.”

  “A’gettin’ them back, ye figurin’?” he asked as he checked the cinch and tightened it more. “They blow up their bellies so they don’t get too squeezed,” he explained.

  “Like gettin’ them back, I do,” she said in a vengeful way. “Ne’er liked bein’ a slave. Reckon I’m yer slave now.”

  “I hain’t got slaves,” he said as he climbed aboard his horse.

  “I ne’er wanted to be one, neither,” she answered.

  He offered his arm and she gladly took it, slipped her bare right foot into the stirrup and swung herself onto the horse’s rump behind the saddle. “Ye reckon I could have some boots from a dead English?” she asked.

  He nudged his horse forward as others in his contingent moved out of the trees to the open ground.

  “We’ll see,” he answered.

  As the contingent of reivers emptied the area they left naught more than the hide and bone carcass of four bovines hanging by their hind legs from a low branch of a tree close to an ash pit that still smelled of cooked red meat and drippings.

  The twelve hundred man army again ran fast and stretched wide. On their way north they reived as plenty as they could find. The word of their coming had spread overnight and folks in the path of the proposed devastation had taken their most valuable possessions and fled. Many of those people who were not well liked by their neighbors somehow failed to get the word and were caught by surprise.

  When the army drew close to the Tyne River and to the lands of the Umfraville’s the army was ordered to close order and two abreast. The same peasants who were working the fields when the Scots went south were still placidly working as the Scots returned.

  James Douglas was the first to push into the water telling George and John to hold the army and plunder on the edge of the river. He rode his horse alone to the other side and when he came up on the shore he was suddenly set upon by five knights.

  George and John froze until they saw Douglas ride to the mounted men.

  “Must know them,” said George.

  “Keeps his plans tight to himself,” remarked John.

  “He told us,” replied George twisting on his saddle.

  “What?” came back John.

  “Here’s where we’re to meet the ones who are to take the plunder back to Otterburn is what he said,” barked George.

  “What’re we fixed to do then?” asked John.

  “Don’t know,” was his unsatisfying answer.

  While on the far side of the river James Douglas was talking to Sir John Swinton. His squire James stood his horse close to his liege.

  “Ye have troubles gettin’ here?” he asked.

  “Nae trouble, Milord,” said Swinton. “Saw plenty a spy… that’s only.”

  “They’re from Newcastle I reckon. ‘Tain’t far from here,” said Douglas.

  “I ken where it is, Milord,” said the knight resolutely.

  “Ye come by way of Otterburn?” asked Douglas.

  “As ye said for us to do, Milord,” answered John.

  “How long will it take for ye to take a good sized herd of kine with sheep, pigs and such back to there?” asked Douglas.

  Swinton thought.

  Douglas looked back to his portion of the army waiting across the water.

  “How much ye got?” asked the knight not wanting to give the earl a poor answer.

  “A’plenty we have,” answered Douglas well aware he was badly describing the quantity of his gathered and diverse herd. “Some might get washed away comin’ across that water.”

  “At least two and maybe three days,” came the answer at last.

  “A’right. Ye take the herd and we’ll meet ye in Otterburn in three days,” said Douglas.

  “What if we’re set upon by English?” asked Swinton.

  “If my plan works, ye’ll not be set upon by any to speak of,” said Douglas. “And ye’ll be meetin’ Ramsey’s contingent in Otterburn.”

  “Swinton smiled. He waved a signal and the close tree line became alive with four hundred man-at-arms and lads all sallying forth on three hundred horsebacks.

  Douglas rode to the edge of the river and waved to Earl George.

  “Reckon we can take them across now,” said George.

  “Got a notion as to how?” asked his brother.

  “Some,” he replied.

  George lined his men up across the east side of the river and sent the kine across. Their four foot height made it tough to walk the bottom as a horse would do but their lighter weight allowed them to more easily swim.

  Within most of an hour the cattle were on the north side of the water.

  The remaining animals were too small to run across in the same manner so the spearmen and archers were next and as each came to the edge of the water were handed either an animal to be put across the withers of their horse or one large enough to be tethered and reluctantly dragged across by its horns or front quarters. Gold, silver and the like was brought across in a like manner in leather pouches. The hostages were cut loose and allowed to swim as they could while they were over-watched by some of the archers ready to shoot any who tried to escape. Mungan and Adara ca
me across alone for fear two on the back of one horse might be too much.

  By and by the whole of the reiving party including their plunder was on the north side.

  “Still sayin’ three days?” asked Douglas coming to Swinton.

  “Reckon we can,” answered Swinton with a smile.

  His squire, James, was licking his chops already at the presumption of travel food.

  James Douglas saw the eagerness in the lad and ordered, “Nae meat ‘til ye get to Otterburn.” He then turned to Earl John and said, “Pick us six bovine and three fat pigs to go our way.”

  “Aye, Milord,” he said and went pleasantly about his orders knowing there was another good meal in store for the men… and one woman.

  Soon the grand plunder was heading toward Otterburn and Douglas and the Dunbar brothers with their knights and men-at-arms turned east toward Newcastle-upon-Tyne at a leisurely pace.

  August 16 - Early Morning

  Castle Carlisle

  The winding wheel of the portcullis was worked one chain-link at a time so as not to alarm anyone within or without of the castle walls. Soon the grille work gate was raised high enough for a rider and his mount to easily traverse and the brake pin was inserted.

  “Are you ready?” asked Lord Ralph Neville sitting in the great hall of the massive keep, across the trestle table from Sir Thomas Easley, his warden of the garrison.

  “Am, Milord,” answered Easley. “Today those devilish Scotch are ‘bout to get their up comin’s… I swear on my honor.”

  “I fear ‘twill be our honor if you fail,” said old Neville leaning close to his warden and gritting his teeth while talking in low tones, so others in their immediate vicinity could not hear.

  “I will not fail you, Milord,” insisted Easley.

  “If you do,” said Neville still hunched close to Easley’s face, “you’re obliged to fall on your own sword for I will never want to see you alive again… do you understand?”

  Thomas Easley swallowed hard. “I will not fail to defeat them!” he pressed and within his own being, gathered the courage into his spine to kill every Scot holding them prisoner within the castle walls.

  “I’m riskin’ a lot of credibility with the king and the Lords Appellate on this gambit of yours. I don’t want anything to go wrong,” reiterated Neville.

  “Nor do I, Milord,” came back Thomas throwing his head back as if there was an affront to his good name. “When I do bring you honor I would hope you would remember me fondly to the king… and the lords if they should still have the king under their sway.”

  Lord Neville smiled and Sir Thomas knew they were in complete agreement as to each others aspiring ambitions.

  Outside it was still as black as obsidian and only the occasional torch ensconced on the low portion of the inner curtain wall provided the least glimmer of light within the already active bailey outside of the garrison barracks.

  The wall guards staring outward focused intently on the myriad of small fires scattered on the darkened landscape indicating the Scots under the command of Earl Archibald Douglas were still holding Castle Carlisle under siege.

  In front of one of those campfires laid a mostly picked over carcass of a small beef that had been plundered from a nearby croft. Its upstanding rib cage flickered white bone and red meat flecks in the sparkling light of the fire.

  On the far side of the fire was Archibald sitting on a rock with his trews around his thighs close to his knees and rubbing a soothing greasy salve betwixt his legs.

  John Montgomery emerged out of the darkened trees and sat the stone across the fire from the man. He parked his spear on his shoulder and bent his back low to his thighs to stretch his weary muscles.

  John saw what Archibald was doing and so the earl felt at least a small obligation to explain.

  “Saddle galled,” he said still applying the salve.

  Montgomery nodded he understood. “Get galled from time to time myself,” he admitted. “Pig grease, ye usin’?”

  Farrier’s salve, it is… I get it from my farrier… uses it on horses, he does,” explained Archibald wiping the excess from his fingers onto the ground weeds at his feet.

  Montgomery nodded. “Not much happenin’ this night,” he opined with a long sigh.

  Archibald stood and pulled his trews around his girth looping the belt to hold them up. “Ye’re right, hain’t much of a siege… but ‘twern’t suppose to be neither. No more than to keep the army penned inside so they couldn’t come for our raiders.”

  “Druther fight in the open than lay about like this,” said John.

  “I’m fixed to reive more when Robert Stewart gets back,” admitted Archibald, “Got a lot of revenge to pass out here’bouts for their reivin’ in Gallowaydurin’ year past.”

  The sky slowly began to lighten.

  “Reckon they’ll be after us today any?” asked Montgomery thinking he would take a nap on the grassy spot near the big oak tree.

  “Heard some bare faint clankin’ a while ago on the far end of the wall… but nothin’ of late,” replied Archibald as he stretched high up and yawned.

  Montgomery stood. “I’ll go down to that end and see if there’s any more such sounds,” said Montgomery as he walked away.

  Archibald pulled his dagger from its sheath, reached over the fire and trimmed a bit of cold half-dried meat from a bone of the carcass. He chewed as he looked into the faint yellowish light of the new day contrasted with the dark ruddy stone work of the castle walls. He remembered his father telling him stories about when he and King Robert Bruce came to this castle even with several catapults and could not break the walls no matter how they tried. How strange it is of me to stand this same ground some seventy and more years later without a slimmest hope of breaching the walls either and yet here I am wondering why, when I could be gettin’ rich off the whole of Cumberland, he thought in earnest. This is the plot of ambitions far beyond my own.

  Inside the gate tunnel one hundred and seventy-three knights sat their excited horses, biting bits and begging to be released to action. The men drew their bladed weapons with the simple kill or mutilate order well implanted in their heads.

  Behind were another eighty men-at-arms on foot ready to do the follow-up work the knights were bound to initiate.

  The longbow archers filtered along the wall opposite to where the Scots were camped. They nocked an arrow into their bowstrings and set two more added arrows along the wall in front of them for subsequent shots. They then sat on the wall walk with their backs against the wall waiting for the signal.

  A half dozen archers were positioned on top of the keep so they could launch their barbs deeper into the Scottish camp.

  Lord Ralph Neville stood hunched among the archers. He looked at the warm wan eastern light and then on the killing field in front of him. The light was perfect for his devious purpose.

  He motioned for the messenger to come forward who had been drilled on the one single procedural task he was to perform and so Neville had a one word order, “Now!”

  The runner ran down the steps from the wall walk through the middle bailey and out through the far bailey to the booted toe of Sir Thomas Easley and looking up to the man’s face relaying the message, “Now.”

  Easley tightened the grip on the reins in his gloved hand and with his other he held his sword high over his head giving the signal to his men to be ready. “Gate and bridge!” commanded Easley and the six men, poised to remove the bar, swing wide the gates and release the drawbridge across the wet moat, went into action.

  In the quiet of the morning Sir Ralph heard the gates to the main tunnel open and the bridge slamming the far side of the moat with a loud report. He ordered his archers to go to work.

  Death rained on the sleeping Scots as most of them slept. Two more volleys of arrow flights followed up with terrible devistation.

  John Montgomery who had gone to that far end of the castle grounds to investigate heard the bridge hit the ground and when
he also heard the sudden clattering of many horse hooves coming across the wooden bridge he began to cry out his warning to the top of his breath. “English are upon us!! English are upon us!!”

  Men with swords drawn came to rally at his side but the horsemen passed them by before they could be engaged.

  They were headed for the more fertile and less prepared killing ground.

  “There’s more a’comin’!” warned Montgomery as he saw the foot soldiers with spears following.

  The dozen or so Scots gathered with Montgomery ran at the footmen screaming their war whoops across the field.

  On orders, ten of the English men-at-arms foot stopped to confront the attacking Scots while the remainder continued along their original path.

  Montgomery was the first to hit the splinter contingent with all his might and leading with his buckler. His swift sword strokes on impact were unexpected and two immediately paid the price for their slow wit.

  The other Scots slammed more of the English on foot who were better ready. One clipped the bare head of a man as he swung his spear pole in close quarters. The man went down flinging blood in the weeds.

  Within a moment that was done. Montgomery had three of his men on the ground groaning but all of the English were down except the one who ran back toward the gate tunnel to hide in the grass.

  The marauding English knights and esquires ran their horses through the thickest part of the sleeping Scots hacking and maiming with the constant indiscriminate swings of their swords from the saddle.

  The cries of the unfortunate and confused sleepers were heavy and piteous in the air.

  The galling of Archibald Douglas was the least of his worries when he realized his camp was under sneak attack. He could see men all across the camp coming alive but not fast enough to save their skins.

  Archibald pulled his hunting horn from his side and blew as loud a blast as he could manage. Men’s heads were hoisting in every direction. The blast also drew the attention of an English knight and he took the earl to be an easy target. So as he rode by he leaned out of the saddle to take a swipe at the earl’s head.