by J. R. Tomlin
The Bruce raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Thank you, Jamie. I'd never have thought of that.”
“Pardon, Your Grace.” James shrugged. “I was wondering if we dare take them closer. We only have ten ladders. So... How many with us?”
“It's been a very long while since I was in Berwick.” The King was staring in the direction of the town that had once been Scotland's greatest port—until the English raped it. He gave his head a sharp shake. “Yes. They will wait here out of sight whilst we open the gates. This is close enough to hear a horn in the quiet of the night.”
“We'll have to hold it until they reach us...” He blew out a breath. There was no point in trying to tell the King not to risk himself. “Wat.” He motioned his sergeant over. “Send two men with horns closer to town. I want to be sure you're on your way when we need you. Keep your horses and swords to hand.”
In the shade of the beeches the men remaining with them stood tending their horses, scratching, checking their bags for bannocks left from their last camp, and talking. When the Bruce called to them, the talk died and they gathered around.
“Fifty men,” the Bruce said. “Ones who can move quietly and kill with their dirks. Who'll step up?”
Fergus was the first to step forward.
James snorted. Fergus always wanted to be first in a fight. “You come on the run when we need you instead. Big ox.”
Instead Philp was the first and the King counted until they had fifty. “Off with your armor,” he said as he stripped off his mail hauberk. “Only the men who are raising the ladders should have pikes.”
James dropped his hauberk and re-buckled his sword belt around his bare waist. There was no wood ash for they'd built no fires so he thrust his chin towards the edge of the river. He strode to the river's edge and knelt in the shallows to slather mud across his chest. The King squatted next to him and smeared mud across his own face, and they daubed themselves accompanied by the grunts and splashing of their men.
James bit the inside of his lip as he smeared mud across his cheeks. “They've three hundred men. It will be a hard fight.”
“Don't fash yourself, Jamie. It's hardly my first.”
“Does that really mean you must always risk yourself?”
The Bruce snorted and stood up. “We can follow the road. That will make easier going in our bare feet. By the time we walk to the castle it will be full dark.”
James suppressed a sigh as the King took one of the pikes and slung a coiled rope ladder over his shoulder. He'd stay at the King's back. It was all he could do.
So he strode at the King's back as they walked single file through the murky night. A sea wind raised goose bumps across his arms and beech branches rattled beside the road. Every sound had his hand on his hilt. They made their way beside the river where it rounded the hill and the hugely looming cliff where Berwick Castle stood rose before them. Watch fires lit each corner tower. Otherwise it was a monstrous mass of black against a purple night sky.
The Bruce paused and James strained to make out the town at the base of the cliff. Nothing moved. The spars of a single ship bobbed at a pier past the darkened warehouses and homes.
“Let's go.” The King strode up the steep, rocky hillside, veering off the road.
James grunted when he caught his bare foot in a gash of broken ground. The tourney ground. It went up to the east wall between two of the towers. Below, the tide washed on the rocks like a sleepy lullaby. He could only hope it had put the guards to sleep enough for them to make it up the ladders. It was hard to fight halfway up a ladder. Or to guard a King's back.
In front of him, the King jumped down into the dry ditch that circled Berwick. James followed and scrambled up the far edge to stand on the narrow strip against the castle's rough wall. “Spread out,” he said softly to the men who followed. They knew their business though, so that was his only order.
There was scrapes and a few soft clangs as the King and Philp fastened the ladder onto their pikes. James drew his dirk and gripped it between his teeth, the metal cold and bitter in his mouth. You can't draw a sword while you're climbing.
There were a few clatters as the pikes were placed on the ground. James strained his eyes and ears. Somewhere there must be guards patrolling the ramparts, but there was no sound of marching feet. The great castle could hold off a siege for many months. Perhaps it had made them complacent.
He brushed by the King to put his foot on the first rung and began to climb. There was a faint snort but no other argument. He climbed the rough wooden boards of the ladder. Scanning both ways to see that the parapet was clear, he vaulted his legs over the crenelated wall onto the parapet-walk.
A dog barked in the yard below. It began to howl. Someone shouted, “Attackers!”
The King was half-over the edge of the wall. Gelleys vaulted into view. Footsteps pounded from both directions. Below, the dog barked and growled as it ran back and forth.
“’Ware the wall!”
“Down,” James shouted, drawing his sword. “We're discovered.” A guard rushed James, steel catching the faint light of a watch fire. The blade slid across the flesh of James's chest as he sidestepped, a slash of fire. He sucked in a breath as he smashed his sword into the side of the guard's head. The blow was hard enough to smash in the side of the man's helmet. The man fell back, blood dripping down his neck. James drew a killing backstroke across his gut and sent him off the edge of the parapet with a kick.
The King grabbed James by the arm and threw him towards the ladder. “Go!”
He could feel blood dripping down his belly and legs. The slash hurt like the very devil but it didn't feel as though it were very deep. He scrambled over the wall and down the ladder. He jumped the last few feet and went to his knees. If he could bandage it before he bled out, he'd live he thought. A horn was blowing. He wasn't sure if it was theirs or the English but it would bring their men.
The King was hoisting James's arm over a shoulder. “Run!”
Gelleys was on his other side. Between the two of them, he half ran and was dragged, feet knocking on hard stones.
There was a hammer of hooves on the road. Wat shouted, “The gates coming down.”
The King hoisted him into the saddle. “Ride!”
James thrust his bare feet into the stirrups and clapped them to the horse's flank. He pressed a hand to the slash where blood sluggishly leaked.
“Can you stay ahorse?” the King called to him.
A bark of laughter tore into his chest. God that hurt. “No choice. I'll make it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
February 1314
James scraped the razor across his chin, shaving away half of his short beard. “Everyone knows I wear a beard, Wat. I won't be recognized.” Nearby the River Tweet rustled its way past bare oaks mixed with dark pines that scraped the sky.
His sergeant scowled at him. “Too many have seen you in battle. Or know you from negotiations. It's an insane risk, my lord.”
James kept his face straight although his lips twitched. How many years had they been having this selfsame argument? He shaved the other side of his chin before he answered. “I have to see Roxburgh. Look more closely at its defenses if we are to take it. And we must have it. Before summer.”
He bent over the basin and splashed water on his face. He wiped his face dry on a strip of rough cloth. How odd it felt to have the skin around his mouth free of the beard he had worn for years. He ran his hand thoughtfully over his face. Perhaps he'd remain clean-shaven.
Wat shook his head. “You've never grown a whit less stubborn. Not since the first day I served you.”
James picked up his ivory comb from the rock he was using as a table and paused. “Did you think that I would?”
“I keep hoping. So does my lord intend to tell me his plan? You've not brought horses to sell.”
“No, I fear I've used that trick one too many times. The commander there is Guillemin de Fiennes from Guyenne. I believe I can still m
ake shift to be French if I put my mind to it. A tradesman with word from his home in Bouglon.” James ran the comb through his hair and smoothed the front of his woolen tunic.
Wat widened his eyes. “Do you have any word from Bouglon?”
“No. But Fiennes doesn't need to know that.” James grinned. When Wat slapped his forehead with his palm, they both laughed. James threw his arm around Wat's shoulder. “Now don't be an old hen's wife. I'll take a good look at the place even if I don't talk to Fiennes. Then I shall make us a plan.”
“If you don't get yourself captured,” Wat muttered. He sighed heavily as they walked to the four horses hobbled within the thick stand of hawthorns.
James shoved aside the bare branches and picked up a large pack. “I've cleared our stores of lace and silk. Most of it did come from France at some point.”
“Before we took it from the English you mean.”
“Well... Yes. I mind most of this came from that visit last summer to Hartlepool. No point in letting it burn.” James strapped the pack into place on the back of the placid sumpter horse. “I'll be back by nightfall tomorrow. Meet me here.”
“God speed,” Wat grumbled as James swung into the saddle.
“Don't fash yourself so much. It's not the first time I've climbed into the leopard's mouth.” James took the sumpter horse's lead and ducked under a low hanging branch as his horses sloshed through the icy slush on the ground.
He turned onto the road, slick, frozen under a skin of snowy slush. The road began to rise and beyond the massive towers of Roxburgh Castle brooded above the tops of the trees. He'd never been inside this particular castle. He had no reason as a squire serving Bishop Lamberton and no opportunity since with it tightly in enemy hands.
The trees ended and before his rose the bare cliff, topped by the light stone of the huge keep. No fools the English. There would be no cover near the castle. It had a certain majesty where it crowned the narrow promontory. He smiled grimly. The cliff was not tall, but the rise sheer and massive, taking up all the summit. The only way to it was a narrow pasture glittering with a coating of ice. A cow lowed as he past and then raised its head to gaze beyond him.
A half-grown lad in homespun carrying a stave drove a couple of shaggy, red-hided cattle before him. One of them stopped, shaking its head. The boy shouted, “Hoi. Go on with you.” He flicked it on the flank with his staff and the cow lumbered on.
The bridge over the frozen moat was down but two mail-clad guardsmen, pikes in their hands, stood in the shadow of the barbican. James dismounted and strolled toward them. He nodded. “Sirs, I am Jacque de Guyenne, a merchant. Might I have entry into this beautiful château-fort?”
“Risky traveling alone,” one of the guards, older, grizzled and scarred, said.
“Indeed, monsieur. We were attacked near the forest and my guard slain. I hope to hire another but the risk...” He shrugged. “...it may be no one will be willing to take such and what am I to do?”
A younger guard put in, “What you selling then, Frenchie?”
The older man grunted. “Nothing you can afford, I'd wager.”
“Fine lace and silks I carried with me from Guyenne. But with the war, this has been a lean year.”
“Won't sell nothing here in the gate. Might as well go in. Don't think you're no danger of attacking the place.”
“Merci.” James nodded and tugged on his horse's reins to lead them through the shadowy passage. Watery beams of light through the murder holes lit the way.
Inside the walls of the wide outer bailey yard, everything was castle business and noise. Above on the battlements a crossbow-bearing guardsman paced. A hound met James, curiously sniffing at his heels. Across the way, the wide doors of the forge were flung open and within a smith bent, hammering over his anvil. A wain was being unloaded and horses unharnessed, the men grumbling and gossiping. A servant in homespun, cloak flapping in the light wind, bent under the weight of a barrel as he carried it toward the inner gate. Another lugged blades wrapped in cloth to a large wooden building James guessed was the armory.
A light snow began to fall as James led his horse toward the doors of the long wooden stable against the far outer wall. As he neared it, another guard rounded the corner of the embattlement overhead, striding into view. It seemed few guards for so large a place, but its strength was in its twenty-foot-high walls thicker than a man was tall. Even the wall barring the way to the inner bailey was a tall as a man.
A rangy man stood in the wide doorway of the stable shouting orders as a stable boy led an animal into the stable. Another ragged boy staggered by the door carrying a head-high pile of hay.
“Bonjour, Maître d'écurie, have you room for my horses?”
"And who might you be?" he said. "We don't have hay for every horse in Scotland."
“Merely a humble merchant. I stay one night unless the commander of your château-fort invites me to stay longer. But such goods as I carry do not take long to show.”
The man grunted. “I don't know. Don't like the chance of our own mounts going short what with the Black Douglas and King Hob ambushing supply trains and all.”
“Ah, Maître, of course your stable is a concern. Now mine is that my packs are so full, I must be rid of some of what I carry.” James handed the man his reins with a wry smile and unfastened the pack. He took out a folded piece of heavy yellow silk. “Perhaps you would aid me with accepting this piece?”
The man took the cloth and ran a thumb over its smooth surface. “It might do for a tunic. To help you out, I'll take it off your hands. I guess you could stable those animals of yours in one of the stalls. There's one in the back corner big enough for both. Better keep well away from the destriers. They don't take kindly to strangers.” He thrust the reins back into James's hands as turned on his heel.
“Maître d'écurie, if you happen to know someone looking for work, I need to hire a new guard. My former one I fear may have met a sad fate at the hands of les Ecossais.”
The man paused and frowned at James. “And where might that have been?”
“Not so very far. A day's ride—where the road goes along... I think it is the River Tweed? Is that the correct name?”
“Nothing unusual these days, but you'd best tell that story to Sir Guillemin.”
“I will be pleased to. Perhaps he will know of someone I can hire.” James led the horses into the barn's warmth, rich with the smell of horse sweat and hay and shit one of the stable boys was shoveling up as James walked past. In the far back corner, he unsaddled his mount and took the pack from the sumpter horse. He'd care for them later but found a bucket of water and hay. A slap to his horse's flank and he shouldered the heavy pack and strode out into the watery sunlight.
“Most like you'll find Sir Guillemin in the great hall,” the stable master called to him as he passed.
James smiled and nodded his thanks. The thick plank gate to the inner bailey stood open so James strolled through behind a servant bent under the weight of faggots strapped to his back. They passed a man lazily sweeping snow from the cobbles as they passed through the smaller yard to the door of the keep where a single guard stood watch. A servant cursed when a squawking chicken he carried pecked at his hand. The servant opened the door and entered, but James paused.
“Is Sir Guillemin within?” James asked.
“That he is.”
James looked up. Four stories, a good-sized keep. “I'll find him then.” He stomped the wet snow from his boots before he went in. The fire on the wide hearth gave off a welcome warmth and a rough coated hound stretched out in front of it at the feet of a man reading a parchment and a black robed friar waiting. Torches flickered in sconces along the whitewashed walls interspersed with painted shields. A pair of servants were lifting the top of a long trestle table from its legs. Another was shoving the rushes on the floor into a pile whilst one gathered an armload to carry out.
“Damn me. Cleaning the whole hall. Waste of sweat,” one of them said a
s he hoisted up the table.
The other grunted. “Lord wants his fine feast come Shrove Tuesday. Not but what I don't want my share.”
James approached heavy muscled, grizzled man with the parchment and the friar at his side. “Boujour.” James gave a slight bow. “Sir Guillemin de Fiennes?”
The man looked up, dark eyes looking distracted. “What?”
“Your pardon, sir. I'm Jacque de Guyenne. A merchant.” He let the pack onto the floor. “I beg the courtesy of the castle for the night. Also the stable master suggested I mention that I and my guard were attacked...” He shrugged. “Oh, about a day's ride away. My guard, he did not escape.”
Sir Guillemin thrust the letter at the friar. “You see what I'm up against. Write the answer to Lord Clifford that I'll hold out until the English army arrives. But if the King's army does not come this time, we will lose the castle.” He waved the friar away and gave James a raking look. “There is nothing I can do about your guard. You should give thanks to the Good God that you escaped.”
“I do. Though if there is someone here who might be hired for a guard for my return to Guyenne, that would be most wondrous. And if the knights of the castle might want to look over my goods...” He smiled amiably. “... I would give thanks even more, my lord.”
“I'd give much to be returning there myself.” He looked around the hall and spotted one of the servants. “Bring a flagon of wine and cups. Now show me these goods you've brought and tell me when was the last time you were home? Hearing of home will make you welcome to stay for our Shrove Tuesday feast.” His mouth gave a sour twist. “Not like we would have at home, but I've managed to put back a tun of good wine. Not the vinegar they drink here.”
James picked up his pack. “I fear two days is longer than I can stay, but I'm pleased to talk about home.” As he followed the knight to the high backed lord's chair on the dais, he swallowed down a satisfied smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
