A Clash of Lions

by A. J. MacKenzie

  ‘For your sake, I hope it isn’t him,’ he said. ‘But someone in that group is, and very possibly more than one.’

  He saw the disappointment in the young face. ‘My father would never do anything so dishonourable,’ the boy said.

  ‘Your father is no ordinary man.’ Fighting men who read Cicero and French romantic poetry; he had met some in the past, but they were rare. ‘Try to get some sleep, my lad. One way or another, tomorrow is going to be a long day.’

  Harbottle, 26th of September, 1346

  Morning

  At dawn the horns blew the alarm, echoing off the cloud-shrouded hills of Coquetdale. Merrivale rose from his sleepless bed and hurried down to the hall where Umfraville and his men were arming. Harkness was one of them, strapping on his greaves and picking up his sword belt, not meeting Merrivale’s eye. ‘You were right,’ Umfraville said, his voice taut. ‘The Scots are over the border. They’re burning their way down the valley, and coming straight for us.’

  Another man hurried into the hall, mud-splattered and breathing hard. ‘They’re coming on fast, sir. We spotted the red heart of Douglas, and the red lion.’

  ‘Bruce of Carrick,’ said Merrivale. Beside him, Peter nodded. The boy was carrying his unstrung bow and coiled bowstring in one hand and had a quiver of arrows over his shoulder.

  ‘How many?’ asked Umfraville.

  ‘Hundreds, sir. They’re thick as ants on the hillsides.’

  Umfraville’s tenants were all armed, and Clennell had brought men from his neighbouring estate. Wake and Selby had only the small escorts they had ridden with from Cumberland. ‘What do you intend to do?’ Merrivale asked.

  ‘Fight, of course. I told you the queen could depend on our loyalty.’ Umfraville picked up his shield, blazoned with a gold cinquefoil on red, and went down the stairs in a clash of articulated metal, followed by Harkness and the rest of his men. A moment later came a clatter of hooves as they rode out of the castle.

  ‘I’ll stay with you, sir,’ Peter said calmly. ‘Just in case.’

  It was sometimes hard to remember Peter was only fifteen, but he had grown up on the borders and war was all he had ever known. The castle courtyard was full of frightened people, looking up at the battlements; Lady Joan moved among them, trying to maintain calm. Merrivale spotted the woman he had seen last night, holding her child close to her chest while her lips moved in prayer. He climbed up to the wall-walk, where the garrison stood ready at their posts with spears and bows. Clouds hung in drifts around the crags, and now and then a few drops of rain fell. Peter tucked his bowstring into his pocket, and Merrivale was reminded of the archers putting their strings under their caps during the hailstorm before Crécy. My God, he thought, was that really only a month ago?

  Smoke boiled up over the hills, rising and becoming one with the clouds. Orange flames glittered brilliantly in the dull morning light, and in the distance they could see movement around the burning farms, the black shapes of men and horses, the silver glint of lance points. Umfraville’s men had deployed near the river; they had a few archers, Merrivale saw, as well as men-at-arms and light armoured hobelars. Clennell, Wake and Selby had swung left and were positioned further up the hillside. Merrivale was puzzled by this at first, and then he saw that a fold in the ground concealed Clennell and the others from the view of the oncoming Scots.

  Down past the burning farms came a solid body of horsemen. Banners waved over their heads, the red heart of Douglas and the red lion of Bruce, two famous blazons that had struck fear along the borders for generations. Peter de Lisle glanced up at the clouds. ‘I think the rain has stopped,’ he said calmly, and uncoiling his bowstring, he bent his bow and strung it, pulling out an arrow and nocking it.

  ‘They have archers too,’ someone said. Merrivale saw them in the same moment, a little company of mounted archers keeping pace with the main body on the flank nearest Clennell’s little force. If they spotted Clennell early, they would shoot his men to pieces and leave Umfraville to be overwhelmed by Douglas and Bruce. Merrivale realised he was holding his breath.

  The enemy came on, steadily, the horsemen disciplined and keeping ranks. A few were men-at-arms, most were hobelars in leather jacks with long lances. The trampling of hooves could be felt in the stone ramparts. Behind them more farms blossomed with flame, smoke shrouding the valley in haze. Sparks fell across the ramparts. The mounted archers were cantering now, sweeping around the flank of Umfraville’s force, moving into position to enfilade them while the Scottish horsemen charged from the front. Merrivale watched Clennell’s black lions, standing on the hillside below the dark crags. Come on, he said silently. It’s now or never.

  As if in response to his thought, Clennell’s men began to move. Down the hill they swept, the black lions flanked by the red and gold bars of Wake and the black and gold of Selby. They hit the Scottish archers before they could turn their horses and smashed through the middle of their formation like a chisel, driving straight on towards the flank of the main body. They hit at almost exactly the same moment as Umfraville charged from the front, and where there had been discipline and order now there was chaos as the old enemies hacked and stabbed at each other, knocking men out of the saddle and spearing them on the ground. Below them, the water of the Coquet began to grow dark with blood.

  ‘Look out!’ The Scottish archers had recovered from the shock of Clennell’s attack, and instead of joining in the melee along the river they were coming straight for the castle, raising their bows. ‘Get down, sir!’ Peter cried, and he and Merrivale ducked behind the crenelations as a shower of arrows flew upwards, some bouncing off the stone, others whirring into the courtyard. One of the garrison fell backwards off the wall-walk, an arrow embedded in his neck, and there were screams and cries of pain from the courtyard below. Peter stood up and shot one of the archers out of the saddle, reached for an arrow and shot again, crouching down again as more arrows flew upwards.

  Down by the river a horn sounded, and when Merrivale next looked out the archers were retreating. Douglas and Bruce were withdrawing too, their men breaking off the combat and wheeling away from the English horsemen. He saw Umfraville raise a hand, holding his men back at first in case this was a ruse. But the Scots continued to retreat, leaving bodies and riderless horses behind them, pursued cautiously by the English. Within a quarter of an hour both forces had disappeared behind the drifting smoke.

  Men began bringing the bodies in soon after. Down in the courtyard, the woman and her child were dead; a single arrow had pierced them both and remained embedded, binding them together. The archer who shot the arrow had been aiming for the battlements; he had been unable to see his victims, and would never know what he had done.

  Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye

  Do not fret ye, little pet ye

  The Black Douglas shall not get ye

  One of the first corpses to be brought back from the field and laid out on the cobbles beside them was David Harkness. He had been shot through the chest, the arrow penetrating his mail coat and the jack beneath, and the blue surcoat with gold chevrons and red crescent was dark with blood. He would have lived for a little while after being shot, Merrivale thought, but not long.

  Peter de Lisle knelt beside the man who had once carried him on his shoulders, taking the dead man’s hand and bowing his head. ‘Did anyone see what happened to him?’ Merrivale asked.

  ‘An arrow came out of nowhere, sir, just as they were breaking off,’ a hobelar said. ‘Davy was right up front, alongside Sir Gilbert. They couldn’t hardly miss him.’

  ‘The archers were retreating the castle. How did any of them manage to get off a shot at such distance?’

  ‘The arrow came out of the scrimmage, sir. We think it was one of Carrick’s men.’

  They were waiting for him, Merrivale thought. This was not a death in battle but a deliberate killing. And Harkness was right up in the forefront, like Uriah the Hittite. Did Umfraville sacrifice his own man? I will ask hi
m, when he returns.

  But Umfraville did not return, nor did Clennell or Wake or Selby. Everyone had seen them in the middle of the fighting and burning, leading the way up the valley in pursuit of the beaten Scots, but when the smoke began to clear the leaders of the Disinherited had vanished.

  12

  Berwick-upon-Tweed, 26th of September, 1346

  Morning

  The man-at-arms was called Murdo, and he knew the country well. He evinced very little interest in who Tiphaine was or how she came here, but he listened intently to her edited version of the meeting at South Shields. He seemed already to know who Rollond de Brus was, which both annoyed her and excited her suspicions, but on the other hand she was alone in a foreign country with war about to break out, and she needed all the friends she could get. Even dubious ones.

  They tracked the friar as far as the Great North Road, where they had their first argument. Tiphaine wanted to follow him closely; Murdo insisted they hang back so Oswald didn’t spot them. ‘We have an advantage,’ he said. ‘We know where he is going, but he doesn’t know we are following him.’

  They spent the night in a monastic hospice at Wooler, listening to thunder hammer off the flanks of the Cheviots. Morning brought damp, clammy weather and also the ominous sight of clouds of smoke rising to the south-west. Tiphaine wondered briefly where Simon was, or whether he was still alive, and then pushed the thought firmly from her mind. ‘Aye, it’s begun,’ said Murdo, mounting his horse. ‘We’ll need to go carefully now. We are only half a dozen miles from the border. Stay close to me.’

  Tiphaine had no intention of doing anything else. They rode out of the hospital gates just as its single bell began to ring prime with dull clanging strokes. ‘Why are they breaking the truce?’ she asked. ‘And on a Sunday, too. What about the Truce of God?’

  Murdo snorted. ‘As if anyone on the Borders gives a damn about God.’

  They left the Great North Road and descended to the coast near Lindisfarne, its monastery and church dark in the distance. More smoke boiled up, to the north-west this time. The roads were ominously empty, and despite last night’s thunderstorm the air seemed heavy and threatening. After a couple of hours Murdo pointed ahead to a walled town on a steep hill, the silver sheet of a river winding at its feet. ‘Berwick,’ he said.

  The tide was coming in by the time they reached the south bank of the Tweed. A ferry took them across the rushing river, the castle looming high above them and the town falling down the slope towards the water. Murdo appeared to know the ferrymen, and they him. ‘Have you seen Brother Oswald recently?’ the man-at-arms asked.

  ‘Oswald of Halton? That fat scoundrel. Aye, he came up the south road this morning.’

  ‘Know where I can find him?’

  ‘The stews, of course. He’ll be at the whores, as usual.’

  Tiphaine could not help herself. ‘Even on a Sunday?’

  ‘On the seventh day, God rested,’ said the ferryman.

  The sentries at the gates were nervous, eyeing the clouds of smoke, but some of them recognised Murdo too and greeted him; they paid no attention to Tiphaine, clad in her dusty gown. Inside the gates the streets were packed with people, many of them country folk from the surrounding villages who had seen the smoke of burning farms and come to seek shelter inside Berwick’s walls. Anxious, frightened faces surrounded them. On Castlegate, Murdo dismounted outside an inn and went briefly inside.

  ‘I’ve taken a room,’ he said, coming back out. ‘Wait there, and do not go out for any reason.’

  ‘Can’t I come with you?’

  ‘Oswald will recognise you, and I don’t want him to know you are here. Ask the servants to send up some hot water and a cake of soap. I won’t be long.’

  Murdo knew Berwick well; better, perhaps, than he should have done. He had served in the garrison once, but he had visited the town before in other guises, and he knew the pattern of its streets and the towers of its churches better than those of his home town, Finlaggan, back in the Sudreyjar, the Southern Isles. Descending Castlegate, he walked down towards the port and came to Sandgate, a narrow cobbled street fronting a row of warehouses and rough stone buildings. He stopped by one of these, looking at a large man in a greasy tunic who stood in the doorway, arms folded across his chest.

  ‘Is Oswald here?’ Murdo demanded.

  The man said nothing. Murdo flipped a silver penny into the air and the man reached out and caught it, then folded his arms again. ‘Room at the back,’ he said.

  Murdo pushed open the door and went inside. The smells of steam and smoke and sweat mingled in the air. Pink figures moved through the steam, gasping and diving out of the way when they saw Murdo’s mail coat and helmet. Ignoring them, Murdo walked through the steam rooms and came to another door, which he flung open without ceremony. ‘Brother Oswald,’ he said. ‘I want a word with you.’

  Brother Oswald sat on the edge of a narrow bed, a bandage on one hand and his cassock bunched around his waist. A woman knelt on the floor in front of him, working busily. The friar looked up, his face beet red with tension and outrage. ‘How dare you burst in here— Oh, body of Christ. It’s you.’

  ‘I want a word,’ Murdo repeated. ‘Get rid of the bawd.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ said the friar. ‘I paid for this, and I want my money’s worth. Come on, woman! Faster, God damn it!’

  The woman complied. She was not young, Murdo thought; her breasts were wrinkled and she was missing several teeth. Oswald must be short of money. The friar leaned forward suddenly, gasping, and then flopped back on the bed, heaving like a stranded whale. Murdo jerked his thumb at the door and the woman scrambled up and out of the room.

  ‘You are a disgrace to your habit and your order,’ Murdo said.

  ‘Go to hell. I’m not listening to lectures on morality from Agnes of Dunbar’s spy.’

  Murdo regarded him. ‘You were her spy yourself, once, until you mucked it up. You had one simple task, to bribe the guards at the Cow Port to open up and let our troops into Berwick, and you butchered it. You didn’t even have the decency to come back and explain what went wrong, Muc Sassanach.’

  ‘No,’ growled Oswald. ‘I didn’t fancy telling Black Agnes I had failed. Would you?’

  ‘I don’t fail. Where and when is the meeting?’

  Oswald sat up. ‘What meeting?’

  ‘Don’t be coy with me. You carried a message from the Seigneur de Brus to the Disinherited, telling them to meet him and yourself in Berwick today. Come to the usual place, you said. Where is the usual place?’

  ‘If I tell you, Brus will cut my tongue out.’

  ‘And if you don’t, I will cut your balls off,’ said Murdo, drawing his sword. ‘Where and when is the meeting?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Because I’m coming too. My mistress doesn’t like being shut out of councils. She wants to know what’s going on.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Oswald. ‘Brus is an evil bastard, you know. If you show up, he’s likely to kill us both.’

  ‘I don’t frighten easily, Oswald. You ought to know that. I want to see the English traitors for myself, and I want to hear from their own lips what they plan to do. This whole campaign could turn on them. I’ll take care of Brus, all you have to do is confirm my story. I’ll see you safe too, though Christ knows why.’

  ‘Honour among thieves,’ said Oswald. ‘How refreshing to see the old values observed.’ He looked at the sword blade still pointed at his groin. ‘We meet at Saint Leonard’s convent in Bondington, an hour after vespers.’

  ‘See? That wasn’t so difficult,’ said Murdo, sheathing his sword. ‘Are you still working for the priory at Durham?’

  Oswald said nothing. ‘So you are, then,’ said Murdo. ‘You’re spying on Brus for Brother Hugh, aren’t you? If Brus finds out, he’ll dip your bollocks in silver and wear them as earrings.’

  ‘He won’t find out,’ said Oswald. ‘Or if he does, he’ll learn a few things about Black
Agnes’s spy as well.’

  ‘It’s settled then. We keep each other’s secrets.’ Murdo raised a hand in mock salute. ‘Until tonight, brother.’

  * * *

  Back at the inn, Murdo took off his helmet and set it down on a table. He had a long straight nose like the prow of a galley and short, roughly cropped brown hair. Steam curled from a jug of water on the table, next to a basin and a cake of yellow soap. ‘They meet at Saint Leonard’s convent,’ he said. ‘I know the place. It’s a Cistercian house in Bondington, just outside the walls and not far from the castle. The Scots smashed it up in ’33 when they were trying to recapture the town, just before the battle at Halidon Hill. Only a handful of nuns still live there, and they mostly keep to the cloister.’

  ‘A perfect place for a rendezvous,’ said Tiphaine.

  ‘Aye,’ said Murdo, pulling his mail tunic off over his head. It jingled faintly as he dropped it to the floor.

  Tiphaine looked around. ‘Where is my room?’

  ‘This is your room,’ said Murdo, taking off the heavy quilted doublet he wore under the mail. ‘They only had one private room left. The refugees from the countryside have taken pretty much every available room in Berwick. It was this, or the common room floor.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tiphaine. ‘I’m not sure I want to share my room with a man.’ She looked again as Murdo unlaced a sweat-stained linen shirt and dropped it on the floor beside the jack. ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ mimicked the woman who called herself Murdo. ‘Does this make a difference, then?’

  ‘It does. But who on earth are you?’

  ‘I am Lady Mora of Islay, daughter of Aonghais Óg Mac Dhòmhnuill of Islay and sister of Eòin Mac Dhòmhnuill, Lord of the Isles. I am a shieldmaiden in the service of Agnes, Countess of Dunbar.’

  It was said with pride. Tiphaine stared at her, intrigued rather than frightened; if this woman had wanted to kill her, she would have done so out in the lonely wastes of Northumberland, not here in the middle of town. ‘What was a Scot doing in the garrison at Warkworth?’ she asked.