The Black Douglas Trilogy

by J. R. Tomlin

  Keith shouted for his men to retire as they strung out towards the fleeing knights.

  James glared at the King. “What I'd expect from Sir Edward,” he said through gritted teeth.

  The King threw back his head and laughed. To James the laugh had a feverish sound. He blew out a puff of breath as his anger faded. The King lived.

  “He saw nothing of the pits.” The King turned his horse's head and trotted back the way they had come. “The branches and sod that cover them is drying in this heat, but it needn't last long.”

  From a distance upon the hillock, James heard a roar of cheers like breakers on the shore: the Scots yelling, “Scotland! Scotland!” A torrent of men rushed towards them around the shoulder of land.

  “Get your men back in place,” the King snapped. But his mouth twitched in a near smile as he said it. “Keith, on the hill with your men and watch for archers trying to flank us.”

  James shouted for Wat and Gelleys as they rode onto the hillock overlooking the camp. “What is the ado here? Move the men into place.” As he spoke, he raised an eyebrow at Thomas Randolph nearing at a trot.

  “Sire!” Randolph called. “There are shouts all over camp. You were in single combat?”

  “Holy Rude, Thomas. You'd think it was the first time.”

  “You...” Randolph blinked at the King and looked speechless. “Sire, it's not fitting.”

  James watched grimly as below the vast main force of the English King rolled into sight, with no sign of the end of them. The mass of men and horses crowded beside the water of the Burn in an ever-swelling tangle. Surely there was no room for such a force. The space just would not hold them.

  Inexorably they spread onto the carse, a boundless tide spreading over the bogs and tide pools. Even from here, James could see the horses foundering and struggling, hock deep in muck. Thousand upon thousand of glittering knight, England's chivalry, flooded into the waterlogged plain. James glanced at the King. “They're stopping? In the carse?”

  Then he caught a motion beyond Randolph. Something nearer, through the trees. A flash of light and color. He walked his horse a little past Randolph, frowning. A banner? He turned back to them.

  “Your Grace.” James pointed. “Look. On the road at St. Ninian's.”

  “What?” The King jerked around.

  Through a space in the trees a mile away, James could see the leading edge of a mounted troop of knights and men-at-arms, a huge yellow banner fluttering over their heads. They passed the tower of St. Ninian's Kirk. “Clifford,” James said. “I'd know that banner in the bowels of hell itself.” Like a mailed arm, an English host thrust along the low road. “Five hundred?”

  “More,” the Bruce said.

  James worried his lip. “What... Where are they going? Do they intend to attack? So few even on the flank?”

  “Either they will claim they have relieved the castle... or wait until battle to take us in the flank. Perhaps both. My lord of Moray,” the King barked, “how many men are you letting flank us? A rose has fallen from your garland of renown. Go save it. I gave you St. Ninian's Kirk to hold.”

  His face flushed red, Randolph turned his horse and whipped it to a gallop for his men, out of sight within the woods.

  The line of English might strung out in a triple line along the road. They stopped. A trumpet blew and the hair on the back of James's neck prickled at the sound. “They've spotted Randolph's schiltron.”

  The hedgehog of a thousand bristling pikes crept into view. Fifty yards from the English, blocking the road, they stopped and braced their pikes, shoulder to shoulder, one line of pikes over the shoulder of the outer who knelt. Someone unfurled Moray's banner and it waved in the above them.

  “They'll be ridden down,” Maol of Lennox muttered. “They haven't a chance. Not foot against cavalry.”

  “We have no choice but to see,” the King said as trumpets blared.

  “That's too many,” James said. “They can't hold against so many.” Each destrier was a thousand pounds of moving death. It couldn't be done. “Let me go to their aid.”

  “No. We can't take the chance of a surprise attack on our front. Remember Methven.”

  A trumpet blew again and like a rushing tide the line of armored horsemen surged forward. It met the square of sharp steel, swirled around it, surrounded it. Dust rose in a cloud. James strained to see through the dusty fog. Horses reared. The cavalry was a seething mass. Sounds drifted up, faint with distance.

  “Sire! Please!” James said. “If I go, they'll have to split their men.”

  The King's hands were in fists, white fingered, as he clutched hard at his reins. “All right. Go!”

  James wheeled his horse and slapped its flank. “Wat! To their aid!” He galloped ahead of his men, halfway down the slope. As he went the sounds of battle turned into a cacophony of screaming horses. Shouts. Grunts. Clanking mail. Moans. James pulled up and raised his arm high over his head. “Hold!” he shouted. “Hold!”

  Now he saw what he couldn't from a distance through the dust of battle, horses down, dead and dying piled around the schiltron. Bodies of men were caught in the tangle. The ground was a trampled, bloody bog. But the schiltron held with Moray's banner waving above it.

  A man-at-arms backed his horse up and threw his sword in a furious arc into the mass of pikes. It flew past the helmeted heads and James gave a snort of laughter.

  Wat trotted up beside him. “Should we...”

  “Hold. The glory is theirs. We'll not steal it.”

  Furiously riding at the steely thistle, a knight's blue draped destrier reared and shied away, refusing to impale itself, screaming terror.

  A trumpet gave three long blasts. Commands were shouted. The cavalry scattered back to the road to reform into a ragged double line. The bristling schiltron, pikes red in the sunshine, froze into place. There were groans and cries. A pikeman raised his weapon and brought the point down in a vicious strike.

  “Scotland! A Moray! A Moray!” James shouted, grinning. Behind him echoed thousands of cries and cheers. James leaned close to Wat to be heard over the chaos, “Give them a moment to cheer and then move the men back into place.” He slid from the saddle and walked toward Randolph's schiltron. Randolph shoved his way through the line of men as they dropped to their knees. Pikes clattered to the ground. They scooped off helms and dropped them. Sweat dripped down their faces. An armored man crawled out from under a pile of the dead. Randolph paused to roll the man onto his back with a foot and spoke to a pikeman.

  “Bravely done,” James said. He couldn't stop grinning as he squelched through the bloody muck. “Bravely done, my lord earl.” He offered Randolph his hand. Perhaps one day they might even be friends if they both lived through the battle. The fighting today was barely a foretaste of what was to come.

  Randolph grasped his hand for a moment. “I thought that you would join the fight.”

  “No. The glory was yours. You earned it.” He looked at the billowing dust from the cavalry as they retired. “And tomorrow there'll be enough to share.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The King sat astride a warhorse in his battle armor, his tabard of cloth-of-gold, the lion of Scotland rearing, bejeweled, on its front. In caught the fading red rays of sunset.

  It seemed strange to James that so large an army could be silent as they waited for the King to speak.

  “In the morning we fight. At sunrise we hear mass and with banners flying we meet our enemy. A powerful enemy–one that would fill us with terror, in their numbers and their might and strength.

  “But they mistake, for we have strengths they have not counted. First, that they despise us, spit on us, and attack us in our own land. But it is our land. Second, if we defeat them we are steeped in spoils and in glory. But there is a third reason, the most important.

  "We fight for our lives, for our children, our wives, our country's very freedom. They fight only because they hate and would destroy us. Well, I promise you thi
s, if we stand with courage and valor, they will rue the day."

  Men cheered, if grimly, and shouted.

  “We cannot forget that if we are cowards, if we lose this battle, no worse fate can befall us than to fall into their hands. They have no mercy. As they killed Wallace and my own brother, Nigel, deaths more horrible than we can imagine, so they would kill us.

  “There was a day, long past, when we lived in thralldom to the English and their might. No more! You demanded your freedom. Now we stand together, and we can win. What they do is an evil, not blessed by God. They are moved only by a desire to conquer, by greed. We are moved by love of our homes and our people.

  “We are not here for plunder nor prisoners nor riches. We are here to defend our homes and all that we love. Prepare yourselves for battle on the morrow. For our strength is in God!”

  A snarling cheer, ferocious and angry, rose from the rank upon rank of men. Most had waited a lifetime to throw off, once and for all, the yoke of their conqueror.

  The King inclined his head in dismissal and turned his horse's head to ride to his pavilion. James walked through the scattering men. He was conscious of the talk of the coming battle all around him. He felt the eyes that followed him as he wended his way through the crush.

  The late summer dusk settled over the camp. The banners turned to black, the men passing shadows. Walter Stewart spoke to him from out of the murk, “No cook fires tonight.”

  “No. We must fast for the Mass anyway.”

  As they walked, around them the camp sank into an uneasy silence. The men were gathered into their own camps in the order for battle, Edward de Bruce in the van. James found Gelleys and Allane passing between them a skin of wine. They gave a guilty start when he clapped Gelleys on the shoulder. “I won't tell the priests if you don't,” James said.

  He heard the deep rumble of Fergus's laugher booming through the dark. He followed it where a dozen of his men sat on their haunches on the cold ground. He squatted in their midst. “You're to sleep in your armor.”

  “I was too far to hear,” Philp said. “What did the King say?”

  James gazed up at the midnight blue of the sky scattered with stars. How small their battles sometimes seemed in the dark of the night. “He said that tomorrow we win or we die.” James put a smile in his voice. “And the Black Douglas is not going to die.”

  Fergus broke off half an oat bannock and handed it to him. “Dawn comes early on midsummer day.”

  “Aye. So it does.” James's stomach rumbled, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. He ruefully crammed the bannock in his mouth. Chewing, he found a dark spot under a scrawny little tree. He pulled off his helm, unbuckled his sword belt and laid them beside him as he settled against the rough trunk. He thought he should pray but no words came to him. He could die on the morrow, might well die on the morrow. But in the quiet of the night with stars above them and the familiar smell of sweat and iron and leather, it seemed not such a bad thing. Perhaps if he did, he would... No, he'd not think of that. It was his duty to live and to keep his men alive.

  James took his sword from its sheath and tested the edge on his thumb. He sucked the blood from the cut off with a smile. He went to sleep smiling.

  He awoke with a hand shaking his shoulder in the dove-gray light of near dawn. Grunting, he shook his head and used the trunk of the tree to lever himself to his feet. Walter handed him a cup of stale water. He swished it around his teeth and spit on the ground. The morning breeze carried the scent of the distant sea. “Wat,” James called, “why is my banner not flying? Where is Walter's banner?”

  The camp was a murmur of low voices, the clatter of pikes, the creak of leather armor.

  “The Mass is about to start,” Wat answered.

  “Raise my banner,” James said as he dropped to his knees. A rock gouged into in shin. Down the slope, like a phantom the Bishop raised his hands over his head. James strained to hear the words of the Mass, but the Bishop was too far. When the men around him muttered “Christe elèison,” James added his voice. Christ have mercy indeed.

  As he rose to his feet, William de Irvine trotted up and bent over his horse's withers to say, “The King sends word that Sir Edward's schiltron is in position and moving. You know what to do.”

  “I know.” Irvine's face was a pale moon in the faint light. “Go with God.”

  “And you.” The young man pulled his horse's head around and rode into the murk. It was too dark for James to tell if the other of the divisions were in position. They had to trust. Especially they had to trust that the marischal, his good-father, would lead the cavalry to break up the archers. If he failed them...

  James shrugged. He had his own job to do. Dawn stained the faces around him with a faint golden light. He shoved his pot helm onto his head and buckled his sword belt. “Ready?”

  Walter nodded.

  “Hurry!” Wat was saying as he went from man to man. “Into position. Pikes at the ready.”

  “Gelleys.” James put his hand on the man's shoulder. “Hie to Earl Thomas's position. Run back and let me know when they start to move forward.”

  He pushed Walter towards the schiltron. They would take up position within the square, protected but with their own duties, to command and to fill any breach when men went down under the weight of charging destriers or the shattering of their own weapons. Even the knights, except for the cavalry with the marischal, would fight afoot.

  “My lord,” Gelleys called. “The earl has begun to charge.” The man grabbed up his pike from where he had dropped it and jumped into position.

  “Now,” James said. “Stay together, men. Shoulder to shoulder.”

  At every step of the long march down the slope, James strained to hear the sound of battle. It was eerily quiet. He could smell the nervous sweat of his men. The crunch of a thousand footsteps in the dry bracken. Walter's fast breath. The flap of their pennants over their heads. So long a march...

  To his left, a trumpet sounded one long blast. James lifted his visor and worked spit onto his dry tongue. “Kneel,” he commanded and dropped to his knees one last time. All around him rose the murmur of a heartfelt prayer:

  “Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.”

  Trumpets shrilled and called from the direction of the far scattered English army. To arms, to arms, to arms, to arms, they cried.

  A shout rose from the left. Scotland! Scotland!" James cursed that he couldn't see beyond his own men. "Onward," James ordered. James couldn't see the battle beginning but he heard it. Trumpets. Hoofbeats from thousands of mounts that shook the ground under his feet. The skin-crawling screech of impaled horses. The crash of shattering pikes. And the war cries. "A Bruce! Scotland! Moray! Moray!"

  Then his men began to shout, “A Douglas! A Douglas!”

  “Keep moving,” James shouted as knights, so close packed they couldn't turn, hurtled themselves onto their pikes. “On them!”

  A horse reared, hooves slashing and was gutted, gushing a crimson fountain. There were grunts and curses as his men forced another step forward. Another draped all in blue rammed into Philp's pike. It shattered with a crash. He went down. The knight slashed right and left in great figure eights. James dashed forward, caught the blade on his shield and whacked at his helm. “Close up!” he shouted. The knight lifted his sword for another swing. He stopped. His sword slipped from his hands as he went to his knees then flat on his face.

  Walter put his foot in the middle of his back and jerked his blade free. The blood on his gauntlets glistened red. James thumped his shoulder and turned back to the battle. Another step. James darted between two of the pikesmen who had spread apart. A knight, mounted but helmetless, hacked at his head. James dodged. He slashed the knight'
s leg open and dashed back. The man would bleed out without his help.

  Allane's pike shattered. A knight wearing the blue and red of the earl of Pembroke drove his lance through the man's chest. James hacked at him. Another pike went through the neck of his horse. James slipped in the gore and slid sideways in ankle deep muck. His sword spun out of his hand.

  He grabbed his dirk from his belt and lurched to his feet. It was a chaos of fighting. The King's trumpet blew a triple call, the signal for the Keith to attack. An arrow landed in front of him and one bounced off his shield. He wondered if the marischal was faithful and then he was fighting again.

  Men lurched between the pikes of the spreading schiltron. James grabbed up a fallen sword. He swung it, shouting, “A Douglas!” Some men he killed. He wounded some. Others went down under someone else's blade. Always there was another. And another.

  He looked up and saw that the sun was high in the sky. How long had they fought? James was too tired to remember. His arm felt leaden as he raised it to swing. In front of him, Philp stumbled and went to one knee, holding himself up with his pike. James cursed. “Up,” he grated. “You must get up.”

  The man raised his blood-splattered face to stare at James. “It's too many.”

  James swayed. “On your feet, damn you.”

  Philp pushed himself using his pike. He lurched back into the line of pikemen. James turned back to the raging chaos. His feet squelched in the torn, bloody dirt. Before him, a confusion of banners waved over the sea of struggling men; mounted knights hacked against the press of the pikes in a pandemonium of screams and shouts and blood and mire. He pressed on, stumbling, floundering, wading, and cursing. “On them!” he said, his throat raw from shouting.

  He suddenly realized that there were no arrows raining on them. Hadn't been for some time. The Keith had stood true.

  Some of the knights, tabards blackened and slime streaked, threw themselves from their saddles and hacked at the line of pikes with their lances. James slashed at the points. His men struggled to stay shoulder to shoulder against the press. One of the unhorsed knights was trampled underfoot by another knight, adding his screams to the cacophony.