Addaf had ordered his men off their horses, because they were mounted foot when all was said and done and that made sense to the commanders of the Van. Now, while they lolled or squatted in the shade of shelters made from their unstrung bows and the corner of a cloak, the proud knights and men-at-arms stayed mounted, their only saving grace being that they were not on their warhorses.
Sir Marmaduke, the sweat coursing down him, noted that the finer of the nobiles were not even fully armoured and so had that curse yet to come – yet, if it came to plunging into the dark greening lurk of the Torwald, they would pile all the new-fangled plate-armour bits they could on and wish for more against the evils they imagined waiting for them there.
Evil was there, certes, Thweng thought, though all they saw of it was a handful of Scots riders led by Sir Robert Keith, who had brought the seneschal of Stirling to King Edward, as was right and proper under the terms of siege and relief. When de Mowbray was done informing the King that, by all the accepted terms – coming within three leagues of the besieged fortress – he had effectively fulfilled the terms of the agreement, he would return under the same escort.
What Mowbray thought it might mean remained a mystery, Thweng thought. Did he seriously imagine everyone – Scot and English – would simply nod, smile, turn round and ride off, writ fulfilled? Yet the ritual dance had to be gone through, step by step. By all means, Thweng thought grimly to himself, let us observe the niceties; later we can rip the gizzard from a man in a chivalric and honourable fashion.
He watched the Welsh enviously, wishing someone had the sense to order the rest of the Van to emulate them, but Hereford and Gloucester were hazed with as much hatred as heat; the de Bohuns and de Clares clustered in clearly defined knots apart from each other and were not about to agree on anything.
Thweng, too, had his knot of riders, not only his own mesnie of four men-at-arms but the coterie of young knights who had come, as they always did, to beg to ride with him. They had formed – again as they always did – little ad-hoc groupings of brotherhood, sworn to great deeds or death. This one, Thweng remembered, was called the Knights of the Shadow – from the psalm, the lord of Badenoch had informed Sir Marmaduke; the one about singing in the shadow of His Wings. It was clear he did not know any more than that, nor wanted to.
Sir Marmaduke had studied the Comyn lord for a long moment, taking in the red-gold dust of hair, the sandy lashes and brows, the snub nose. He looked like a lean, truculent piglet, Thweng decided, but the Yorkshireman had some sympathy with the young Scot – seeing your father murdered by the man who went on to be hailed as king would have an effect. Standing with only seventeen years on you and your boots in the tarn of your da’s blood, watching the killers argue about whether to murder you, too, would make you swear vengeance as a Knight of the Shadow.
‘“You have been my help and in the shadow of Your Wings I rejoice,”’ Thweng had quoted to the astonished Badenoch. Sir Marmaduke had left him astonished, but did not tell him it was not the first time the name had been so used.
He had heard every permutation of such names from scripture and psalm; the last time I fought at Stirling, he recalled with a shiver, the bold oathsworn knights had been called the Wise Angels, after the Lord Jesus’ admonition to St Peter at the time of His arrest.
Most of those knightly angels had unwisely stayed on the wrong side of the brig, to die under the blades of Wallace’s men; most of them were angels for true now, sitting at the Feet of God and wondering how they had got there.
There was a stir and the ranks parted as Mowbray arrived back, red-faced and with a constipated strain about him; he made straight for Hereford while a youth broke from the pack and rode over to Thweng.
He was no more than fifteen, dark hair plastered to his sweating skull and a frantic anxiety about him; Thweng recognized him as a squire to one of Sir Maurice Berkeley’s young sons and hestitated a name.
‘Alexander de Plant.’
‘My lord,’ the squire replied, brightening with relief that he was, at least, known. ‘My lord the King has sent me with instructions for the commanders of the Van,’ the boy went on, spilling it out as fast as the words would tumble. ‘My lord of Pembroke told me to bring them to you and that you would know why and what to do.’
Thweng grunted and cursed de Valence. Of course he knew why – because whomever the squire went to with the King’s orders for the Van would incur the wrath of the other earl and it was better that a respected veteran such as Thweng do it. That way the wrath would be tempered and the instructions at least considered.
The orders were simple enough: the Van was to proceed straight on while the trusted Sir Robert Clifford took his Battle round to the right, with the intent of cutting the Scots off from retreat. The left, it seemed, was cut about with traps and pits, which Mowbray knew about.