Games of Otterburn 1388

by Charles Randolph Bruce

  Mungan and Adara came from the near wood when they heard the rough hooting.

  Adara looked at poor Simon on the wall and began to weep uncontrollable.

  She hugged Mungan and he enveloped her in his large arms.

  “What now?” asked Sir George still staring at dead Simon.

  “It is still their turn to call the event as far as I’m concerned,” said Douglas with his mouth turned down.

  August 16 - Afternoon

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Sir James Douglas drew his dagger and cut a slice of rump meat from the roasted steer hanging from a low branch of one of the trees close behind a peasant’s hovel near the silage field.

  He bit into the succulent fire-cooked meat as he turned to George Dunbar who was ready with his own dagger to take a slice. “Still no word from within the castle,” griped George.

  “Come sudden on us wantin’ a full fight, they might,” said Douglas.

  “And if they do?” asked George.

  Douglas smiled. “Yer son will be earl in yer stead by tomorrow.”

  “Shit,” remarked George, “Hain’t ye got better to say than that?”

  “As many as I know they have within those walls, they could run us over within minutes,” said Douglas taking another bite of his meat.

  “Have a hell of a time gettin’ that many out of that gate ere we could scatter,” opined George.

  Douglas laughed. “Scatter or stand and fight, no matter, we’d still be dead… maybe they’d take me, ye and yer brother… and the rest of our knights for ransom…”

  “And kill most of the rest, I reckon,” said George finishing Douglas’ thought.

  James nodded and smiled. “Ye want to go on thinkin’ yerself to pure tatters?”

  George back smiled with a kind of sardonic snarl and took a first bite.

  “The question is… why hain’t they really come out in full force against us?” wondered Douglas looking at the walls and the many bobbing heads along the top of the battlements. “Just why hain’t they?”

  Adara had at last calmed enough to talk to Mungan regarding her despair.

  “The man yon,” she said pointing to the wall and hiding her eyes with her other hand, “is… my brother.”

  Mungan looked at the stiffened spy hanging half way down the wall over the seemingly awaiting moat where Hotspur had pushed him over with the tied-off rope tight around his neck.

  “Brother?” he wondered.

  “Don’t know how he got in such a fix,” she burst into another storm of tears.

  Mungan had no notion as to what to do. He thought of himself as a Scottish warrior in the employ of Earl John Dunbar and not much more. He knew little about women, never having a female friend and staying close to the garrison quarters and entertaining himself with visits to the falcon mews to offer his services in feeding or other such menial tasks required by cooped hawks. He was, he had to admit to himself, fast finding out a lot about their sort and at that moment he didn’t know if the goods outweighed the sorrows or not.

  In Durham, his empathy for the odd screaming woman had swept over him due to her plight of circumstance and he saved her. He was in his own state of quandary.

  Within the castle’s solar, that Henry Percy had commandeered for the duration of his transitory stay in Newcastle, he was saying, “We cannot go against our king!”

  “Our king is far off, brother mine,” said Ralph. “I could have sliced Douglas up where he stood when he refused to fight me alone.”

  “Just cannot figure,” repeated Henry swilling down the remainder of his wine in the goblet. “Why are they here? Do they want us to make a run at them while their main army awaits in their hiding place ready to pounce like the mean little devils they are?!”

  “You’ve said that a’plenty,” said Ralph who was discussed with the whole situation.

  Henry flashed anger and slammed his fist on the arm of the chair with his one hand and flung his empty goblet at the cold stone hearth with his other.

  Ralph was not impressed. “I could have just run that Douglas through his silly face!” he reiterated seemingly fixated on Sir James’ refusal to fight him.

  “Don’t know but I don’t like playing their game before knowing what their game is,” growled Henry becoming angrier at his own ignorance of the fact that there were Scots close at hand and he seemed powerless to kill them forthright.

  “The bishop will be here tomorrow,” said Ralph. He’ll have plenty of men to kill them with and, as I figure it, Douglas will be layin’ about like he is just now and the bishop’s plenty will ride up on them takin’ their ease and he’ll then kill them all… and you and I will not be to blame ‘cause we’re lock-holed here!” he finished with enthusiasm.

  “And he’ll be under the same orders as we are… wait for Richard and Arundel to show here… goddamn it! Your vision sounds like it was got from a gypsy. Besides we’ve got plenty more than enough men to chase them down and kill them all… and be back in time for supper.”

  Ralph was sullen. First Douglas and then Henry insulted him. He stewed for a while more. He was willing to take abuse from his brother for he was family but that Douglas simply chaffed him in a most awful manner, so he thought.

  “I have an idea, my brother,” said Ralph having another gleam of excitement in his eye.

  “Ye reckon we could get my poor dead brother off the wall, Mungan?” asked Adara still tearful.

  “How ye figure that?” asked Mungan narrowing his eyes.

  “Make a ladder and put it against the wall up to him then clomb up and cut him down,” she explained.

  “Fall in the stinkin’ moat, he will,” offered Mungan.

  “Ye’ll not let that happen to my dear dead brother, will ye?” she implored.

  “Dead, hain’t he?” Mungan answered with a question.

  “Aye, he ‘tis,” she admitted, “but he hain’t had a proper buryin’ neither.”

  “He yer real brother?” growled Mungan getting more suspicious with her every word.

  “O’course he is,” said Adara coyly.

  Mungan stood and walked a few paces away.

  Adara stood and went to Mungan’s back, put her arms around him and said, “Me husband, he is.”

  Mungan unlocked her fingers at his belly and turned and looking her straight in her eyes said, “Yer married?”

  “Was ‘til this morn,” she said. “Not for real married like the uppers get married but married all the same, for a season or two.”

  “None of my truck then,” said Mungan quietly.

  “Ye do like me, don’t ye?”

  Mungan shrugged his big shoulders and wondered how he really did think about her. He liked lying half naked in the wood with her but he never liked her screaming, even though that did come in handy every once in a while he would admit… but only to himself.

  James Douglas sat his horse beside George Dunbar when John Dunbar rode to their side.

  “I think they’re tired of the sham fights,” said John bluntly.

  “Got to hie out of here, ye reckon brother?” opined George.

  “In the morn’s soon enough,” added Douglas. “Reckon Hotspur’s not as hot as I figured him for.”

  He had no more gotten the words from the tip of his tongue when at the top of the tower a trumpet sounded that sounded like Gabriel the Archangel was announcing the end of the world.

  “What ye reckon they’re up to now?” asked George.

  Before any opinions were said the wide double gates to the gate tunnel swung wide and English men-at-arms on foot started pouring out.

  “Got yer war!” said George. “Do we scatter or fight?”

  “Get our men fixed to fight!” ordered Douglas, his eyes focused on the gate and the oncoming warriors.

  George was pleased with Douglas’ decision and set spurs to his destrier.

  The Scots did not have to wait for Earl George or John to come tell them to gird themselves for battle. They alread
y had jumped to their feet and were choked with adrenalin as they clamored for their weapons and what little armor they had taken off and casually laid about.

  The English warriors kept coming from the gate tunnel.

  Douglas did not move from the center of the silage field. He became more fascinated with the disposition of the men as they sallied from within the town walls to taking up a defensive position on their end of the field.

  John came to Douglas. “We’re mostly ready,” he reported.

  “I think they’re out to scrimmage,” said Douglas.

  At the top of the wall there was plenty of laughter and Douglas knew he was right.

  Get a like number of men lined up who are equally armed,” ordered Douglas smiling broadly. He then shook his fist and laughed back at the top of the wall indicating he was accepting their challenge.

  Sir Henry Percy glared down at James Douglas on the field. He had come to despise his rival within that one day. He was far from the notion of trust and so his imagination took charge of his suspicions. He wanted to send all of his men out to kill all of the Scots but his reservation resided in that single piece of parchment from King Richard.

  He was waiting, so he rationalized, but in the meantime there would be no harm to put enough men on the field in a friendly mêlée’ scrimmage to perhaps goad the Scots to commit to a full fledged battle. The scrimmage was shaping up to be anything but friendly and none of the parties were fooled by the pretences.

  “You sure these are your best men-at-arms?” questioned Hotspur openly as the nobility gathered at the wall walk to watch the skirmish.

  “They are my best one hundred,” bid Sir Ralph Lumley of York.

  “And my best seventy,” Sir Matthew Redman gutturally growled, almost daring Hotspur to challenge his opinion or his men’s ability.

  “And my fifty best, Milord,” chimed in the older Sir Robert Ogle. “Good men all on the field, I’d say,” he added as an attempt to calm the contentious boil.

  “Is the rest of our army standing by inside the gate?” asked Hotspur working a kind of mental check list.

  “Under the command of your brother, Milord,” responded Sir Ralph Eure.

  Hotspur curled his lip and gave a brief nod to show he was pleased that his orders had been carried out to the letter. He looked back toward the far end of the field where the haphazard Scots were still getting into position. “Your commander knows the signal?” asked Hotspur.

  Lumley stepped closer to Hotspur. “He knows.”

  “Then cut the rope,” ordered Hotspur.

  “But the Scots, Milord…?”

  Hotspur clipped Lumley’s protest short. “Now, sir!... give your signal!”

  Lumley reluctantly drew his dagger from its scabbard and began sawing the tight rope wound around the merlon of the wall top. The first ring of the rope was cut releasing enough slack that the dead man at the other end of the rope jumped a bit.

  The Scots were still positioning themselves, tightening belts and such. They saw the almost imperceptible jump of the dead man on the wall and considered it a sign of the corpse to start the fight.

  They all at once war whooped and started their charge.

  Douglas turned in surprise.

  Hotspur yelped, “Cut the damned rope now!”

  Ralph Lumley sawed faster at the second strand of the rope wishing he had sharpened his dagger beforehand.

  Finally it was cut through.

  The hanged man and his dangling lash seemed to float endlessly in the air as he fell to the moat water below.

  The Scots had already closed a good portion of the gap by the time the English signal to start the fight splashed the water.

  Hotspur was livid and pounded the stone in front of him with his gauntleted fists while keeping his eyes fixated on the field below.

  The English started their charging run but barely got going when the Scots hit them hard driving them back the short distance to the moat.

  The English warriors behind not wanting to get pushed into the water spread out to the sides of the mêlée.

  The Scots did not realize what was happening until they started getting attacked from behind. The Scots had managed to get themselves surrounded.

  Hotspur became giddy.

  James Douglas could see very few of the surrounded Scots. His jaw tightened when he said, “Prepare the rest of the men. This could get bad!”

  Without a word George wheeled his horse and went back to where the remaining two hundred or so men-at-arms and most of four hundred archers were busy cheering and hooting their fellow Scots in the sham battle.

  It was apparent from the beginning that sham was not a good word to describe what more resembled the depth of hateful war.

  The few knights among the Scot’s men-at-war were quick to realize their dire position. The ones fighting the English on the moat side encouraged their men to push harder. They pushed rather than slashed and it was not long before fighting men were wet in the sewer moat. Their armor quickly went from asset to liability as the weight kept them from the surface.

  Hotspur was livid again shouting orders from the top of the wall that could not be heard from the silage field and wondering why no one was paying him mind.

  Douglas nudged his horse forward a few yards.

  His reserve men crept up with him.

  Within the mêlée blood was flying in every direction as dead and wounded men served as stumbling stones for those still on their feet.

  The mixture of moans and screams and cursing and the clashing of steel against steel were the basis for the din of the battle. To a voyeur it was gut wrenching. As a participant it was an indescribable horror. Only anger and skill kept the warriors upright.

  If chivalry ever had a place on that field it certainly was the first fatality of the skirmish.

  Hotspur noticed Douglas and his men creeping up like a stalking cat. “Our reserve ready?” he asked Lumley who was distraught over watching personal friends and men he knew falling underfoot.

  Lumley was pensively quiet.

  Hotspur turned to Ralph Eure seeking an answer.

  “Ready, Milord,” he replied immediately.

  “Stand hard by,” he ordered.

  “Yes, Milord,” said Eure looking down the stone steps curving around the tower to the flagstone street below. Hotspur’s brother looked up the steps and saw Eure looking down and wondered if he was about to get the signal to attack.

  Eure nodded no.

  Ralph Percy took a deep breath of disappointment and glumly stared straight ahead at the closed and barred gate. His three thousand awaiting troops barely noticed their lord’s annoyance.

  The Scots pushed the mêlée away from the wall and fiercely fought their way to a breakout then turned to fight their opponents in a more organized way.

  The Scot side cheered loudly.

  The wall was silent.

  The blood letting went on longer. Warriors on both sides were tired and making irrational mistakes.

  A good third of the fighters were on the ground either dead, dying or too wounded to continue. A wound of any sort could easily get infected and so claim a kill due to the battle even several months later. Counting bodies was far from an accurate way to determine winners in a war battle but in a skirmish it was the only way to consider.

  James Douglas had had enough of the fight. There were far more of his Scottish soldiers alive than the English. It was obvious they were the winner of the skirmish.

  Douglas galloped around the still fighting men to the base of the wall. He loudly shouted up directly to Hotspur, “Time to count the up-standers!”

  Hotspur pretended to not hear.

  “Stop the fight, Milord,” pleaded Ogle. “We have clearly lost this sham.”

  Hotspur turned with what seemed to be fires in his eyes and snapped, “Who’s side are you on?!”

  Ogle was stunned at his liege lord and had no answer to the asinine question.

  Hotspur realized h
is error and immediately left the wall walk without another word so conceding the contest to the Scots without admitting defeat aloud. He was leaving that dishonor to Sir Robert Ogle who got the distinction just because of his moral judgment tempered by his longer life experiences and not simply raw ambitious emotion.

  Ogle followed Hotspur down the steps and commandeered the first horse of one of his men and climbed aboard. “Open the gate!” he ordered. He looked around to see Ralph Percy still at the ready and said to him, “We have lost this skirmish! Stand your men down.”

  Ralph’s mouth sank even lower. His thin youthful beard was wet with sweat from either excitement or anxiety. Robert Ogle did not know.

  The gatekeepers pushed open the gates and Ogle rode across the already down drawbridge and onto the field. He was met by James Douglas who definitely noticed the large contingent of men waiting just inside the gate and ready to come forth at the bid of any order.

  “Let’s count the up-standers,” said Ogle honorable.

  Douglas nodded his agreement and the two of them rode among the surviving men who had been fighting the mêlée battle and separated the armies. Few were not happy with the abatement as the rest were bone tired in body and of the wholesale killing.

  There was never an actual number count but it was obviously a Scottish victory.

  August 16 - Late Afternoon

  Scot’s Gap – Northumberland

  “Milord?” asked James. “Ye reckon that spy I caught at Southdean went to heaven or hell when his throat was cut?”

  Sir John Swinton turned to his young squire in wonder. “What do ye know of heaven or hell?”

  “I hear things bein’ told by monks and such that bad people burn in the fires of hell for a long time if the Holy Angels turn them out.”

  John sighed then asked, “Which of these animals ye reckon’s goin’ to heaven and which to hell?” He waved his arm in the direction of the walking animals.

  Young James shrugged his shoulders as he looked over the stretched out herd of cattle, oxen, sheep, goats and pigs being driven over the undulating hills in Northumberland.

  “Pigs and such don’t be goin’ to heaven or hell, Milord,” opined James emphatically.