Knight Tenebrae

by Julianne Lee

  “There’s the voice of experience.”

  His cheeks warmed and he gripped his belt with both hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s easy to hate, isn’t it?”

  “You tell me.”

  She sighed. “I don’t hate you. Alex. I wish I did, for that would be easier than loving you and seeing you like this.”

  “Like what? What do you want from me that I’m not doing?”

  Her shoulders sagged with frustration. “Alex, you haven’t been listening to me. I’m horrified at the changes in you. When we first met, you were a gentleman. You were clean, polite... You shined your shoes, for God’s sake. And you had the good grace to understand that what you did for a living was not truly comprehensible to most people. But now...” She welled up and looked away for a moment, blinking, then she looked him in the eye again. “Now you look at the world as if killing were sport and everyone who doesn’t think like you is silly and naïve. You’re like them.” She waved a hand to encompass the entire army camp. “You think war is business. You never look toward ending it, only toward getting what you can out of it.”

  “The world—”

  “This world. Alex. Not our world. This world is that way. I am not, and I don’t want to be. I don’t want you to be, either.”

  “I’m not like that.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. You are. Take a good look at yourself. You have become one of them.”

  Rage colored his vision red. “Wrong. If I were one of them, I would have forced you to marry me in Barra.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Forced?”

  “I can force you to marry me. Did you know that? Hector told me I should do it. He wants you to stop pretending to be a boy, and after Cullan’s death I tend to agree with him.”

  “You killed Cullan, not I.”

  “I killed him defending you. I was trying to keep from exposing you as a woman. It wasn’t his fault. It was ours.”

  “No, Alex, I saw that fight. You killed him because he embarrassed you in front of the others. You lost your temper when he humiliated you. I had nothing to do with it.”

  Alex choked on his next words, unable to say them because she was right and didn’t deserve what he would say next. Instead, he said, “I’m sick of this crap. You want me around because I make you feel safe, but you won’t marry me because my armor isn’t shiny enough to suit you.”

  “I’m sorry, Alex, but I won’t marry you.”

  That did it. He blurted, “I’ll expose you.”

  “You’re threatening me? For that, why don’t you just haul me before a priest and force me to marry you as you said? The end result would be the same.” Then she sighed and passed him to return to the forest and camp.

  He watched her go, and realized he’d lost her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As the time drew near when the English would have to rescue the garrison at Stirling or lose it, the Scots prepared the ground chosen by King Robert: a bit of land just across the burn, hemmed by forest on one side and marsh on the other. There were only two routes for the English to Stirling Castle: to cross the Bannockburn and fight in the meadow below the forest, or to cross the stream to the east and fight on the clayland between it and the marshland to the north. Workmen were sent to dig holes on either side of the road approaching the forest, and they felled trees across paths within the forest to impede the enemy. James Douglas took a small contingent of riders to scout the approach of King Edward.

  On June 22 word came that the English army was nearing from the south. An army larger than anyone present had ever seen. Officially, the Scots were told the English were in disarray, disorganized, but murmured rumors circulated quietly of the many columns of foot soldiers, mounted men displaying banners, and a wagon train that stretched into the distance. Alex knew the alarming rumors were true, for he’d once studied this battle as history. But he also knew his people would prevail, and encouraged his men to believe the lie.

  Now the Scottish army moved into position. The pack train was gathered and hidden far back in the forest with the reserves of “small folk” who were mostly unarmed locals, poorly trained, and whose value lay entirely in their enthusiasm for the fight. The cavalry armed and armored themselves, and mounted to ride into position.

  Alex’s men, attached to the king’s battle now, stayed behind at Torwood to guard while the rest of the army prepared in the forest below Stirling Castle. It wasn’t until very late in the day they mounted to make the two-mile trek to the battlefield. There they took up their position on a forested hill between the two open fields, a deployment they knew and understood well, for the king had drilled them thoroughly.

  As they arranged themselves atop high ground, just inside the tree line, Alex noticed a cluster of men ride up to the king. Something about them struck him, but he wasn’t sure who they were or what it could be. They seemed familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. The four newcomers, all shadows within the forest shade, chatted briefly with Robert, who then gestured to the north where the “small folk” awaited. The four then saluted and rode in that direction, quickly joined by others wearing identical surcoats. The entire group went to wait with the reserves.

  Then it hit Alex why the surcoats looked strange yet familiar. He’d only seen them in history books and movies. “Templars.”

  “Where?” asked Lindsay, who hadn’t noticed the four.

  “Those guys, they went that way.” He pointed with his chin. “They’re Knights Templar. Red cross on white, right?”

  “You’ve gotten pretty good at identifying people. Yes, that would be the Templars.”

  “What’re they doing here? I thought they were outlawed.”

  “Well, for that, most of us are if you’re talking about anywhere outside Scotland. The Templars were betrayed by the French king and condemned by the pope, and most of them were tortured and executed. Robert was excommunicated by that same pope. I say that makes him a natural ally for the Templars who escaped France. Especially since they probably still have plenty of cash to give in support of a king who would refrain from burning them at the stake.”

  Alex grunted in agreement, then turned and peered at her. “And you call me cynical.”

  Her eyes narrowed at him. “You know better than they. You were born to a better world and know it’s possible.”

  “Was I? You’re sure the future was a better world? You think our century isn’t filled with people motivated by self-interest, greed, hatred, or just plain love of violence?”

  She fell silent, and looked away toward the burn.

  Alex looked the other way, and made himself stop thinking about her, to focus on what lay ahead.

  Then, as always, came the waiting. Alex’s pulse picked up some, but today he had little care for anything other than pitting himself against the English. Whether he lived or not was irrelevant; all he wanted was to live or die in glory. With Lindsay lost to him, it was all in the world that was his anymore to give a damn about.

  That night the Scots slept in their positions, propped against trees, with their mounts nearby. The next morning they heard Mass, breakfasted on bread and water, then armed themselves and took up the wait again.

  It was afternoon when, from a rise among the shadows of the forest, Alex looked out through the scattering of trees and saw movement in the distance. The English had arrived. Plate armor glittered in the sun, and brightly colored banners waved. Alex shivered, for it was like gazing at a tiger that was beautiful but deadly, approaching with murderous intent. Robert’s own battle, including Alex and his men, watched as the enemy approached. Lances waved and wobbled, a thick forest on the English vanguard. Each knight was ready to assault the Scots enemy.

  Robert rode forward, still riding his rounsey, as yet not fully armed and carrying only a battle hatchet. The circlet of gold on his head with its points of fleur-de-lis glinted in the occasional patch of sunlight as he walked his mount back and forth. He inspected his lines of
Highlanders, spoke encouragement to his men as he went, and rode out to observe the ponderous approach of the massed enemy. His horse felt the excitement all around and fidgeted. The king seemed unruffled, calm and confident, and held his mount without apparent effort.

  A shout rose from the front of the English column, and the man who rode at the head broke away, lowering his lance as he went. He was headed for the Scottish king, and nobody was close enough to defend Robert who had no lance. Roger Kirkpatrick shouted for the king to withdraw, but went ignored. Instead of fleeing the onrushing lance, Robert faced off and kicked his horse to a canter. Alex leaned forward on his stirrups and watched with sickened heart, fearing history might change, knowing if the king were killed the entire campaign would be over and they would all be outlawed or executed.

  Down the road through the forest Robert rode, straight at the English attacker, then the instant before the wobbling tip of the long enemy lance would have touched him he slipped sideways in his saddle. As the Englishman thundered past, Robert straightened and with a throaty roar slammed his axe into the English helmet, where it stuck. The handle shattered in his hand. Blood and brains splattered. The English knight toppled and his horse galloped on in confusion. Silence fell among both armies.

  Then a wild, fearsome war cry went up among the Scots, and the Highland foot soldiers charged, running through bracken and climbing over felled trees to get at the enemy. Robert’s infantry raced down on the English column struggling to negotiate the hole-riddled field below, and routed them. But as the enemy retreated from the burn and circled to the northeast, toward the field where Moray, Douglas, and Edward Bruce waited, Robert halted the Highland charge and recalled his infantry to the forest.

  For the rest of the afternoon infantry lines were reestablished to face the enemy’s new position and attack, and Robert’s cavalry watched the struggle from the forest as the foot soldiers fought. Alex fidgeted, wishing Robert had sent knights, though he knew the king’s tactics were valid and would win them the battle. He wanted to fight, to be part of the action. His horse sidled with the tension in Alex’s knees against its flanks.

  To the east of his position, the English main body was now engaged by Moray’s infantry, and Alex edged himself and his men in that direction along with the rest of Robert’s cavalry, keeping just within the cover of trees. Down on the field within the bend of the burn, the Scottish pikemen had formed a schiltron—a tight circle of men with spears and shields facing outward—against which the English knights threw themselves in futility. Alex witnessed what appeared to be suicide as knights charged the pikes, and he was boggled that they didn’t just stand down and let their archers lob arrows into the tightly packed cluster of Scots. The archers of Edward I had defeated Wallace’s schiltrons at Falkirk: Alex knew it, every Naval Academy midshipman to attend the class HH381. The Martial Heritage to 1500 knew it, and certainly even the half-naked MacNeil infantry from Barra knew it for the story had been told in the castle at least once last winter. But the son of the man who had given the order at Falkirk apparently did not. The schiltrons held.

  Then Douglas’s men charged from the trees, at a run and with voices raised to the sky, and that was it for the English that day. They broke and ran. Some headed toward Stirling Castle and safety, and others back across the burn, there to camp. The Scots let them go, and retired to the forest once again to eat and sleep. Everyone knew, though, the fight wasn’t nearly over.

  It was a short, fitful night as the Scots waited for daybreak, the midsummer darkness lasting only four or five hours. Men slept lightly, and everyone knew the enemy could attack if they had a mind.

  The sun was barely turning the sky a lighter black when word came via running, whispering pages to mount and assemble in battles. The sun topped the horizon, warming the landscape from a cloudless sky, when King Robert rode to the front to address the army. He began calling names, and those men went forward to kneel before the king.

  Alex heard his own name, and with a thrill of surprise and a little alarm, looked toward Lindsay to know what might be going on. She only shrugged as he dismounted to go before the king. When he knelt with the others, he found himself next to Sir James Douglas. Alex allowed himself only sideways glances at the king’s favorite—and possibly Lindsay’s favorite. Douglas was calm, focused on the ground before him as he waited, a smile curling the corners of his mouth. So smug. He obviously knew what was going on, and Alex resented him for that, too.

  Then Lindsay’s name was called, and it was all Alex could do to not turn and watch her come to the line. In the corner of his vision he saw her kneel on the other side of Douglas, but Alex couldn’t see her face. His jaw clenched as he struggled to keep his attention on the ground before him.

  Then the king began tapping guys on the back of the neck with the flat of his sword, declaring them knights, and Alex understood. It was a mass knighting ceremony. But he and Douglas were already knighted, so he wondered what was in store for them. More sideways glances, but Douglas’s face told him nothing he wanted to know. He heard Lindsay murmur her allegiance to Robert, and he felt adrift. She was a knight now, and no longer his squire. All his ties to her were gone.

  When the king reached Douglas, it turned out he, Alex, and the knight to Alex’s right were to become knights banneret. The three were promoted nearly in the same breath, as Robert pressed on with the ceremony.

  Knight banneret?

  After the blessing by the Abbot of Inchaffray, and the newly minted knights were sent back to their units, Alex remounted his horse and went to Lindsay to congratulate her though his heart wasn’t in it. Her cheeks were flushed, and the slight curl of her mouth showed she was very pleased with herself in spite of the killing her new job would entail.

  Then he whispered, “He made me a knight banneret.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Neither do I.” He thought for a moment as they awaited their orders, then said dryly, “Maybe it means I’ll go to a different part of heaven if I die today.”

  Lindsay didn’t reply. The flush of her face reduced to small, hot roses in her cheeks. She looked stricken. He was sorry he’d said it.

  Orders came, and the infantry began to move. Contrary to custom in which knights had always formed the front line, foot soldiers were placed in front again. Pikemen and archers left the forest and formed schiltrons in the clear before the English, whose cavalry flung themselves against the pikes exactly as they had the day before. And with no better success. As the schiltrons advanced from the forest toward the burn, they trapped the enemy on their narrow campground, for the tide from the firth had come in and the swollen stream was no longer passable.

  The Scottish knights, cheated of their right to first attack, waited, grumbling, as they watched the bloody exchange between archers. It was a horrible embarrassment to be left behind in the fight, and Alex burned with the longing to charge. Difficult enough to work up the mindset to fight and possibly die, without having to maintain it while waiting and doing nothing.

  The schiltrons advanced, stabbing horses as they went and causing confusion amongst the English knights, who thwarted their own archers simply by being in the way.

  Alex watched Douglas’s infantry troops attack, and ached to take his own men into the fray. It was all he could do to obey his king and wait for his orders. The day wore on.

  Finally the moment came. When English archers ran from behind their knights to take the fore, trumpets called Robert’s knights to descend on them. Alex drew and raised his sword, and with a hoarse shout kicked his mount to a gallop and led his men into the fight.

  No longer could he see what was happening beyond his own reach, and he no longer cared. Cross-hilt sword cutting a swath, he plowed into the line of English archers. The dull clanking of metal on metal, mixed with wails of dying men, was deafening. Wounded horses screamed and lunged. English infantry collapsed under Scottish cavalry. A crossbow bolt found Alex’s thigh, but he felt nothing
more than a brief, metallic sensation. Then he was slashing the face of another archer and turning to make certain the man was dead. There was more blood than Alex had ever seen, covering the ground in pools, and the primal rage urged him onward to shed more.

  Then he turned. His eye fell on a scene that made him go cold. An unhorsed English knight had faced off against Lindsay, also unhorsed, and he cut her down, his sword making a solid hit to her side. She collapsed with a shout of agony Alex could pick out from the din of death cries.

  No thought, his action was automatic. He dropped his sword, reached for the pouch at his belt, and drew the pistol. In an instant, before the Englishman could deliver the coup de grace to Lindsay, Alex shot him.

  The report was a pop amid the noise and confusion. Alex urged his horse toward where Lindsay lay struggling, and as another enemy knight raised his weapon to her, Alex shot again. The knight fell, still alive but looking around in terror to know what had hit him. Alex dismounted as he rode up, strode over to the guy, put the pistol’s muzzle between his eyes, and fired.

  Six more men met their deaths by Alex’s gun, then he was out of bullets. He returned the pistol to its pouch, then ran to Lindsay’s horse and pulled his claymore from her saddle scabbard to continue defending her where she lay. He fought with all his strength, and with every bit of skill he’d acquired with the weapon. Men were cut down like wheat before a scythe, and Alex’s only thought was to kill anyone who came too close to Lindsay. Until the noise died and the English were seen to flee the field, he vanquished all comers. Then, when the surviving enemy fled, he collapsed to his armored knees in the blood and mud, gasping, exhausted, and quite surprised to still be alive.

  He turned to Lindsay, terrified of what he might find, and crawled to her. “Lindsay. Breathe. Be alive. Don’t be dead.” Her breathing came in desperately short and shallow gasps, and she’d gone pale and clammy. Her heart beat, but she was bleeding horribly. The leather and horn armor she wore was cleaved across her side, and blood soaked her body, her bloodied hand over the wound.