Games of Otterburn 1388

by Charles Randolph Bruce

  Archibald saw him out of the corner of his eye and instead of jumping back he went low and lunged forward. The gamble paid off as the large frame of the man hit the horse then when he came up the knight was flying pell-mell off his saddle with a surprised look on his face that instantly left when he hit the ground. With the English knight’s sword, Archibald hit him good in the belly below his limited chain mail.

  The giant earl turned to see more.

  Montgomery and his few were working their way toward Archibald as they stepped into the path of several oncoming, wheeling, slashing English knights and Montgomery’s small group started their own slashing at arms, legs or whatever came close to blade.

  Archibald plucked his shield and sword from the ground and set his jaw to get as many English horsemen out of commission as possible.

  The English knights were doing the same.

  Archibald saw the English filtering all around him. He ran into the midst of them. He swung his sword once and knocked another knight off his horse killing him by putting his oversized foot on his chest and jamming his blade through his helm visor.

  More of the Scots found their weapons. More of them were falling from the wild haphazard sword hacks of the English as they rushed through hitting men as fast and as furious as they could manage.

  There were far more Scots on the field than the small forces of the garrison and Lord Neville, watching from the wall walk, knew that his number would have had no chance in an open battle. His excitement exploded as he saw the success Easley and his men were having at frenzied butchery.

  Archibald’s head swiveled looking for a next strike.

  He grabbed the reins of the dead knight’s horse and swung himself aboard kicking it hard in the ribs and headed straight for the thick of the pack.

  Montgomery had seven kills to his blade. “More a’comin’!!” he shouted, “On foot, they are!!”

  More of the armed Scots rallied to Montgomery’s cries for help.

  They screamed their war whoops like banshees and attacked the new comers who easily scattered despite the attempts of their nameless leader trying to hold them cohesive. The English foot soldiers were hardly accountable for they themselves were led to believe their job would be to merely impale wounded Scots to death.

  The livid Scots were tearing into the foot soldiers badly. Some of the English ran faster than others but they were all headed back to the still open gate entrance.

  The one hiding in the grass jumped up when his comrades ran past and joined them in their retreat.

  More Scots rushed to enforce Montgomery’s splintered others holding back the more tenacious English foot.

  Inside, Lord Neville slipped a pre-written parchment letter into a couriers pouch and handed it to the already briefed and prepared messenger named Roger. “Get this to Lord Henry Percy as fast as you can,” he ordered.

  “Yes, Milord,” replied Roger as he put the strap over his head. It dropped to his shoulder as he ran down the stone steps to the main bailey and deftly climbed into the saddle of his awaiting horse. The foot soldiers returning from the field were swarming through the gate tunnel but the messenger knew it was his only chance to get free from the castle without being stopped by the Scots and so galloped through the gate house at best speed running over whoever was in his path.

  Within moments Roger was headed east on the road toward Northumberland.

  Meanwhile, Archibald Douglas was fighting as many knights as he could stop from maiming his men. He had lost his sword but had taken a long handled hammer-axe from an English knight who came close to using it on him.

  Realizing that Sir Thomas Easley was the apparent leader of the sneak attack, the earl worked his way through the mêlée to where he was and rammed him from behind on his right side punching him hard with his large shield and so knocking him off balance.

  Thomas straightened on the saddle in time to get a hard clonk on his helm with the flat of Archibald’s newly acquired axe, dazing the man.

  Archibald put his foot on the belly of Easley’s horse and pushed the two beasts away enough to give his hammer-axe a good chance to do damage on a next planned swing.

  Easley well felt the overhand blow that hit his helm even though it was a glancing blow it knocked him cold and he fell awkwardly to the ground.

  Archibald turned for more but what he saw were the English knights frantically working to get unencumbered from Scottish blades and those that still had horses kicked them hard to get back to the gate entrance from whence they came.

  The earl was suddenly inspired to try for the open gate and called for as many as he could muster to follow him. They ran as fast as they could on the tails of the English yelling to the top of their voices and shaking whatever weapon they might have had over their heads.

  Lord Ralph Neville saw what was happening and a streak of fear surly traversed his old spine for he grabbed up the first man within his grasp and shouted at him to, “Close the goddamned portcullis!!”

  The scared man practically leapt the stone steps from the wall walk by twos and threes. He raced through the baileys to the east gate where a bloody horrible mess of poorly managed knighthood packed the fullness of that part of the castle and when he got close enough to the gatemen, screamed, “Lower the portcullis!!”

  “Now?!...” asked the gateman gesturing to the choked maw of the gate tunnel and the men tightly trapped directly under the fall of the grid.

  The frantic man, fearful of losing his own life, jerked out his dagger and put the point to the man’s throat and yelped as a mad man, “Pull that goddamned brake pin, NOW!”

  The gatekeeper had no choice about the pin and motioned to his companion to let off on the brake pressure a bit while he firmly held the tuft of rope eyed through the pin’s loop hole and pulled.

  The men and knights suddenly realized what was happening and moved to get out of the way of the down-coming portcullis.

  The companion gatekeeper released the catch dropping several tons of castle protection onto the stone gate tunnel floor.

  Men were trapped inside. Men were trapped outside and woe to those who were trapped betwixt for they were instantly killed or wished they had been.

  Lord Neville finally managed to get to the congested gate tunnel. He was pleased with the persistence of his surrogate whom he had sent ahead of his arrival. He stood on the head of a dead man to see better through the grille work.

  The knights trapped on the outside thought to make a fight of it rather than go down begging for their lives and pushed themselves back across the drawbridge to stand their ground.

  Archibald saw the portcullis fall and the good knights trapped and others killed. He made no move to take revenge on the English but he could not blame his warrior Scots who badly wanted and needed their small taste of revenge.

  They rushed the worn and disillusioned knights killing them in as savage a manner as came to their opportunity to do.

  Ralph Neville continued to watch while still balancing on the knight’s beleaguered head. From the wall walk he had seen his warden fall to Archibald’s hammer-axe and thought of how he would no longer need to put his good name in jeopardy with the king by submitting the name of Easley as a curried favor.

  He then calculated his cost in lives to displeasure his enemy and get a message to his son-in-law, Earl Henry Percy, to come help save Castle Carlisle. As he came to a conclusion of his winning and losing with his early morning’s work, he was well satisfied.

  There were moans coming from every part of the field from both English and Scots.

  Montgomery came to Archibald. Both of them were covered in the splatter and run of blood and sweat.

  “They got a rider off toward the east, Milord,” advised Montgomery. “Want me to go after him?”

  “Nae,” replied Archibald, “Be at least five days ere they get more men to here. We’ll be way gone by then.”

  “How many we lose?” asked Montgomery.

  “No notion but the
re’s a’plenty that’s been hacked a time or two and no more. Might mend, might not.”

  “I think that was their thought,” he said in response. “Cut as many as they could so they would have to mend.”

  “‘Twern’t honorable,” said Archibald, “I can tell ye that.”

  “Sun’s goin’ to be up to full light soon,” said Montgomery. “Best move back a bit.”

  “Yer right, I had no reckonin’ they could reach us with arrows.”

  “Better longbows, they have, than we got,” opined Montgomery.

  “They did their business good,” said the earl. “I don’t like what they did but we were mighty bad whipped.”

  “How can we strike back?” asked Montgomery glancing across the field while wiping blood from a drying face wound.

  “When I’m finished here they’ll ne’er do that again,” replied Archibald gritting his jaw muscles tight enough for Montgomery to easily see a bulge in the earl’s whiskers.

  August 16 - Early Morning

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  The sentinel came from the West Gate guard tower onto the wall walk. It was the bare beginning of morning light but he was taunted with the smell of fresh bacon put to fire.

  “You smellin’ pig?” asked his peer coming from a close smaller turret.

  “Where ye reckon it’s comin’ from?”

  “Out town, I reckon,” said the first man. “Gettin’ up early this day.”

  “Wind’s not comin’ from there.”

  The first man peered up at the flapping Saint George flag atop the tower and saw that indeed the wind was coming from the west. He was suspicious and drew his sword setting it on the edge of the crenellated stone wall to look into the darkness. There before his eyes was a hundred or so little fires burning on the ground. He gasped, squinted and threw his body against the wall to see better and when he did he hit his sword and the last he saw of his weapon was the hilt as it made its way to the moat at the bottom of the wall.

  “Damned luck!” he cursed when he heard the splash.

  “Damned bad luck to lose yer sword,” warned his friend with little sympathy.

  “What you reckon about those fires?!”

  “They ain’t inside the walls, is all I say,” said the guard, “and I still got my sword.”

  “Get the garrison warden!” ordered the man beginning to get a shiver of fear.

  “Get him yourself if you want,” returned the second guard.

  The first man stared at his cohort. “You know I’m your higher.”

  “You ain’t and I know there’s nothin’ out there to be scared of, either!” was the quick jab back.

  “Shit. I ain’t scared,” said the first, “let me borrow your sword. I can’t go to the warden without a sword.”

  “Sword?” said the second getting more aggravated by the moment, “You’ll not be a’gettin’ my good sword… You have a big dagger. Pretend!”

  Suddenly there was a call that rang out loud and clear from the opposite side of the double towered gate, “Fires on the ground! Report to the warden! There’s fires on the ground among the serf huts!”

  “See,” said the second man, “it got reported and ‘tain’t nothin’ to it but serfs.”

  “You could yell out that it smells like pig cookin’,” said the first guard.

  “I’m not yellin’ out nothin’,” said the second.

  Just then the door opened on the tower and the warden stepped onto the wall walk. “What fires?”

  “Yonder, Milord,” said the first befuddled guard pointing over the wall toward the huts.

  “Where’s your sword, soldier?” snapped the warden.

  “Moat… Milord,” said the man meekly.

  “Get another and get back here right away!” he again barked.

  “Aye, Milord,” he groveled as he made his way to the tower where the steps that lead to the ground floor were and not knowing what to do about his lost and only sword.

  The warden then turned his attention to why he was primarily there. He stared hard into the bareness of the light and saw not only the hundred small fires but flapping in the light morning breeze and glinted by close burning fires was the war-banner of Earl James Douglas.

  “Damned stinkin’ Scotch!” he barked aloud. His voice was somewhere between surprise and fear. “Ring the bell!”

  The second guard ran down the wall walk to the tower where the bell was mounted and gave it a long, loud and frantic ringing.

  The warden of the garrison then lit out for the keep to report to Adam Buckham and the burgesses and they in turn awoke Lord Henry Percy.

  On the ground and outside the walls George Dunbar said, “Fair to say they know we’re here.”

  “Fair to say,” agreed James Douglas so far pleased with his surprise cock’s call.

  On the wall men-at-arms, with sleep still in their eyes, adjusting their clothing and weapons, ran fast up the tower’s circular steps and onto the wall walk. Within minutes the wall was well lined with bobbing heads staring into the darkness at the fires and smelling the cooking pig that began to give them growls in their stomachs.

  The serfs who worked the fields surrounding the town and lived outside the walls in their hovels also were startled awake with the ringing of the bell. As they came out they were surprised to be within the company of Scottish warriors who made no attempt to harm them but did no more than huddle them up in a group.

  The reticent workers had no thought as to how to respond and so did nothing but do as they were told.

  “What ye reckon them in the castle are a’thinkin’? asked Adara.

  “Don’t know,” admitted Mungan whittling the branches off a stout stick making a spear shaft by the light of one of the fires. “Surprised, I reckon.”

  Adara was excited but she dare not show it for fear her presence would be chaffing for the others after all she was the only woman among the contingent of warriors who had been away from home too long.

  “Be lighter enough soon,” said George.

  “I figure,” replied Douglas smiling.

  “They’re goin’ to know we hain’t but about a thousand layin’ siege to their town,” came back George.

  “We hain’t a’layin’ siege,” said Douglas.

  “Ye might think as such but them in the castle are goin’ to be a’thinkin’ different. Wait ‘til it’s light and the arrows start a’flyin’,” remarked George.

  “I fear they’ll start shootin’ arrows in the dark,” said Douglas.

  “Then I don’t know what yer thinkin’ at all, Milord,” said George getting aggravated, “Offerin’ them some of our one last pig, I reckon!”

  Douglas smiled. “Keep yer shield handy.”

  Hotspur Henry and his brother Ralph hurried to the West Gate tower, up the steps to the wall walk and peered over the thick wall. The daylight was showing more.

  “We got bowmen on the wall?” asked Hotspur immediately.

  Aye Milord,” answered the close standing warden who had just returned.

  Hotspur did not ask more but stood and watched the morning light progressively reveal more about the enemy at his gate.

  The tenseness on the wall walk made the men shiver with anticipation.

  Soon Hotspur shouted in disbelief, “Ain’t but ten of the bastards!”

  “Scotchmen are devious, Milord,” warned the warden.

  Hotspurs own words rang back into his ears and he growled in confusion. He thought of what his father had said to him as a counter warning, too.

  “Hot pig for yer morning repast, Lord Henry?” shouted out Douglas knowing Hotspur must be on the wall by then.

  Anger flared in Henry’s head. His gauntleted fist pounded the stone that held him fast to respond in a physical attack. He calmed a bit and shouted back, “That you, Douglas?”

  “A’waitin’ yer company, Lord Henry.

  “I see only ten of you Scotch… a’waitin’… Lord James,” he sarcastically bantered. “Where are your t
housands I’ve been hearin’ about?”

  Douglas smiled at that piece of information.

  “Around here’bouts, Lord Henry,” Douglas teased. “Come out with all of yers and ye’ll be a’seein’.”

  “You a’layin’ siege?” asked Henry in a seemingly casual way.

  “Nae…” replied Douglas hardly able to contain his glee, “Come to tourney with ye!”

  Henry looked at Ralph who shook his mystified head. He turned to the dumbfounded warden who shook his own head. Henry then shouted his obvious question, “Tourney?!”

  “I will send ye a good leg portion of our roasted pig by way of a women and ye eat hearty ‘cause I want ye and yer men to be strong against us,” said Douglas.

  Adara appeared holding the hind leg of the roasted pig in her hands. She walked out in front so she could be easily seen. She quaked a bit from her nervousness but was proud to have a part in whatever drama the nobles were playing.

  “Here’s yer meat, Lord Henry,” said Douglas.

  “My own. I got a’plenty a’ready,” shouted back Henry.

  “Then come for tourney as ye will, Hotspur!”

  It was a definite taunt and Henry waxed livid.

  Knowing Henry was in torment by the subtle groans from the top of the wall, Douglas again smiled.

  “Shall I release the bowmen, Milord?” asked the fretful warden.

  The sheriff, Sir Ralph Eure and Sir Matthew Redman came to the knot of nobles.

  “No! Tell the archers to stand down,” ordered Henry.

  The two newly arrived men looked over the wall and wondered.

  “Seems to be only ten down there and close enough to easily shoot,” observed Redman with little forethought.

  Henry grumped his displeasure, turned to his brother and asked, “What do you puzzle?”

  “I think they’re pullin’ some mischief to get you to come out, my brother,” advised Ralph.

  “My notion as well,” replied Henry who then turned to the warden and whispered an order that no one else heard.

  The warden’s eyes grew big but he hurried from the wall walk without a word.

  “You fixin’ to go against James Douglas, Milord?” asked Eure.