‘Bigod,’ Ross spat out eventually. ‘When this matter is done …’
‘I will be back to my old tasks,’ Kirkpatrick finished and Ross clicked his teeth shut in his sweating face, remembering the fearsome reputation of the King’s right-hand man. He tried to pull his own visor down to cover his confusion, but it had stuck and Kirkpatrick grinned.
‘You need to loose the hinges on that,’ he offered in a voice like poisoned silk. ‘I have a wee sharp dirk that will do it.’
There might have been more, save that a knot of riders flogged up and, with a shock, Kirkpatrick saw the blazing lion and the gold-circleted helmet. Bruce …
He watched, feeling sick, as Keith, Marischal of Scotland, kneed his mount close to the King, who spoke quickly and gestured once behind him with an axe – he has a new one, Kirkpatrick thought wildly. To replace the one he broke yesterday …
Then, with a rush of spit to his dry mouth, he realized the Marischal was detailing men – and one of them was himself. Sixty or so, he reckoned, with that part of his mind not numbed. He fumbled Cerberus after the trail of them, finding himself next to a knight bright with gold circles on flaming red. Vipond, he recalled. Sir William …
‘What are we to do?’ he asked, feeling his voice strange. He was aware that, somehow, his lips seemed to have gone numb.
‘Chase away that wee wheen of bowmen,’ Vipond replied gruffly, ‘who are annoying the Earl of Moray.’
The bugger with the Earl of Moray, Kirkpatrick wanted to say. Let him look to himself …
‘Dinna fash,’ Vipond said and Kirkpatrick realized he had been muttering to himself and felt immediately shamed, another great rush of heat that made him dizzy.
‘Stay by me, my lord,’ the knight said, smiling a sweat-greased sickle on to his face. ‘You will be as fine as the sun on shiny watter.’
‘Form.’
Kirkpatrick found his hands shaking so hard that he could not make them do anything, but the loose visor of his bascinet clanged shut as if he had ordered it; the world closed to a barred view, as if he was in prison.
He heard the command to move at the trot and did not seem to do much, but Cerberus knew the business and followed the others; he heard his own ragged breathing, echoing inside the metal case of the helm, turned his head a little and saw Vipond sliding his great barrel heaume on, becoming a faceless metal ogre.
‘On – paulatim,’ he heard and Cerberus surged forward so that the cantle banged Kirkpatrick hard in the back. He felt the warm, sudden, shaming flush as his bladder gave way.
Nyd hyder ond bwa.
They roared it out as they nocked, savaged strength into their draw with it and shrieked it out on the release of the coveys of whirring death they sent into the men struggling in their ragged square of spears.
There is no dependence but on the bow.
Addaf, striding up and down behind his men, streamed with sweat and his clothes stuck to him as if he had plunged into the stream they had just crossed. All the men were dark with stains, but there was no water in that stream, only a slush of bog at the bottom, ochre pools that stank.
Yet the sides were steep enough that men had had to haul themselves up by the choke of weeds – but it had been worth it, for they were now given a clear shot straight into the left of the rebel ranks.
The ripping silk sound of the arrows fletched away into the great roar of the battle and Addaf clapped a shoulder here, patted another there and bawled out for them to be steady, aware that there were not enough of them.
He looked across, trying to pick out one of the Berkeley lords; he needed more bowmen – even the Gascons with their silly, slow latchbows would do.
He turned and put a hand on the shoulder of Rhys, planning to bawl the message in his ear and have him repeat it before sending him away; it took him half a sentence to realize that Rhys was neither listening, not shooting, but staring, his mouth slightly open.
Addaf followed his gaze and felt as if he had been struck by lightning. Horses. Riders were coming at them, fast, and the banners they flew were all blue and white, red and gold.
‘Away,’ he roared and was astonished to hear a scream of outrage – and another voice, raised in shrill counter to his command.
‘Stand. Shoot. Kill the heathens.’
Y Crach, shaking with fervour, glared at Addaf and pointed his bowstave at him.
‘You run if you wish, old man.’