Y Crach, as always, was poised like a trembling gazehound. He will hang these with his own hand, Addaf thought sourly, as his own offering to God; Addaf did not care to be reminded that there were too many who would stand with Y Crach.
Others, Addaf was pleased to see, were squinting at the distant riders on a hill. They were Scots, certes, trailing the army like ticks on sheep, but as long as they kept their distance that was fine. Their own prickers on their fast hobs might chase them off, or simply keep them at a distance — and if the rebels closed in on the debris of sick, halt, lame, camp-followers and plain deserters lurking at the rear, it was no great loss to the English army.
The church door opened and the Father, with a relieved and triumphant look back at Addaf, ushered out the rebels: two tottering priests holding one another up — an edgy defiance in grey wool and hodden hood.
‘There,’ said Father John, wiping his sweating face. ‘No harm done, no blood spilled — God be praised.’
‘For ever and ever,’ Addaf replied piously and heard the sound of hooves like a knell, turning into the black, hot scowl of Sir Maurice Berkeley, his two sons like pillars on either side.
‘Is the work done?’ he demanded and Addaf nodded, indicating the little crowd. Berkeley, still scowling, reined his mount round to ride off.
‘Not before time, Centenar Addaf,’ he bellowed over his shoulder. ‘Now hang them all and muster on me — the horse forges ahead.’
There was a pause and then Father John looked wildly from Addaf to the retreating back of Sir Maurice.
‘Your honour …’ he began and Addaf felt the cold stone of it settle in his belly. He had done this from Gascony to here and all points in between, knew there was no arguing with it; he was aware, at the edges of his vision, of Y Crach’s fevered grin of triumph.
The big Hainault captain saw the Welshman’s mourn of face and foraged his mouth with a grimy finger, found the annoying scrap and examined it before flicking it away.
‘Leaf viss us,’ he offered, grinning brownly. ‘Ve fix.’
Addaf hestitated. The Hainaulters wanted the plunder from the church — well, that was fair enough. Let them do the deed; Addaf turned abruptly away from the disbelief on the face of Father John, swept his gaze over Y Crach and his scowl and bellowed at his men to move out, trying to drown the little priest’s screechings.
God serves him badly, Addaf thought sourly, blocking the frantic protests from his ears. Stupid little priest, look you. He should have stayed away when he had the chance.
Up on the hill, Dog Boy and the Black sat at ease, one leg hooked across the saddle, with a mesnie of riders on either side. They watched the archers mount up and ride off, while the big red-faced sweaters flung rope over the graveyard elm; some moved into the church and began to splinter wood in their search for loot.
‘I am sure those are the Welsh we had stushie with,’ the Black offered. ‘The wee flag they carry is the same one we took — the King gave it back as a gift.’
Dog Boy could not deny it, watching as the priest who had been most animated and loud was hauled up in a fury of flailing ankles, two big men in metal-leafed jacks pulling on a leg each until his kicking stopped; one cursed when the priest’s dying bowels opened.
The other two monks, white-haired and patient, sat like old stones and waited to die, while the pungent, heady scent of yellow-blazing gorse drew in buzzing life all round them.
It was not right and Dog Boy said so. The Black, who had already hanged his share of priests, said nothing; if he thought of what he had done it was with the deep, banked burn of everything the English had taken from him. Even having the Cliffords scoured from Douglas and the promise of restoration to the slighted fortress was not nearly revenge enough.
The sight of the English was a stun to the senses, all the same, spread out round a backbone of carts that stretched for miles, hazed in a shroud of dust from thousands of hooves. Behind was a snail-trail of dung-churned morass, where the detritus of the army stumbled. Ahead, and forging ever faster, the horse and the mounted infantry — like the archers — shifted further from the foot.
‘They are in a hurry,’ the Black noted.
‘Even so,’ Dog Boy pointed out, ‘they will be hard put to make Stirling by midsummer — they have at least twenty good Scots miles to reach Edinburgh.’
Closer to twenty-five, James Douglas thought, and capable of making no more than twelve in a day’s march. By the time they get to Edinburgh, it will have been burned and scorched of any easy way of landing supplies from ships, and that will cost them dearly.
That would put them close to midsummer, so that they would have to push to reach the vicinity of Stirling’s fortress in time to claim the siege as lifted. With luck, they would arrive panting and dragging their arses in the dust and Dog Boy, grinning back as the Black voiced this, agreed with a nod.
Patrick, seeing these twin firedogs, marvelled at how they looked nothing at all, no more than dark, good-looking, pleasant youths who could be planning a night of revelry in Edinburgh instead of mayhem on an invading host.
The two old priests hardly kicked at all when the spearmen hauled them up. Parcy Dodd leaned forward on his horse at the sight and shook his head.
‘Ach well,’ he said, ‘let us hope they find a better welcome than auld Brother Cedric.’
‘I am hesitating to ask,’ the Black answered laconically. Parcy grinned, a farrago of gums and gap.
‘Brother Cedric died old and venerated. Upon entering St Peter’s Gate, there was another man in front, waiting to go into Heaven. St Peter asked the man who he was and what he had accomplished in his life and the man revealed that he was Blind Tam, ship’s steersman, who had spent his life on a vessel taking pilgrims to the Holy Land. St Peter handed him a silk robe and a golden sceptre, inviting him to walk in the streets of Our Lord.’
There was a sound of distant, frantic hooves which brought heads up. Parcy, unperturbed, shifted his weight on the horse a little.
‘St Peter’, he went on, ‘asked the same question of Brother Cedric, who tells him he has devoted the entire threescore span of his years to the Lord — and he is given a plain wool robe and wooden staff. Certes, he questions this — in a polite, Christianly way of course — and St Peter lets him know the truth. “While you preached, everyone slept,” he said. “But while Blind Tam steered, everyone prayed.”’
Yabbing Andra arrived in a flurry of foam-flecked horse and dust.
‘Prickers,’ he said and the Black unhooked his leg from the saddle.
‘Bigod, Parcy Dodd,’ he said, as they broke into a fast canter away from the threat, ‘you tell it better than a priest at a sermon.’
Everyone who had heard such heckled sermons laughed, but Patrick shook a mock-sorrowful head.
‘There is an inglenook of Hell’s bad fire set aside just for you, Parcy.’
Dog Boy, who had seen the great swooping banners, the sea of men and horses and power moving like a relentless tide towards Stirling, was sure that Parcy and everyone else would find out where they sat in Hell soon enough.
The Pele, Linlithgow
Feast of St Alban, June 1314
He had not stopped for the banners of St Cuthbert and St John of Beverley, nor visited the shrines; he knew he had avoided that campaign ritual simply because his father had done it before him and Edward knew, too, that such avoidance had been a mistake from the mutters and solemn head-shaking of his knights.
They were worse than any wattled beldame, Edward thought moodily as he chewed on the fish and enjoyed the sweet of the sauce. Christ betimes, he had banners aplenty — a whole cartload of them — and holy help from a slew of abbots and bishops. He was even eating fish, as any Christian knight would do in order to show his purity of body and soul. What was one flapping cloth more or less?