When Thweng approached, Mowbray had already revealed most of what he had learned in his passionate, sweating plea to Hereford and Gloucester not to proceed through the Torwald.
‘They are prepared for it, my lords,’ he declared, waving his arms. ‘Betimes – there is no need. The castle is relieved …’
Gloucester, his darkly handsome young face greasy with joy as much as sweat, gave a sharp bark of laughter.
‘Did you think we came all this way for the pleasant ride in it?’ he demanded and even Hereford had to agree with him, dismissing Mowbray with an armoured wave.
‘Return to Stirling and wait, sir. If the King orders the Van to proceed, proceed it will.’
Thweng delivered the King’s orders, and then sat silently as the entire place suddenly erupted into a frantic flurry. As Philip de Mowbray rode back under his white banner to where the Scots waited in the Torwald he nodded curtly to Thweng, who answered it as briefly. If all went the way it should they would toast each other and victory in the great hall of Stirling three days from now, at most.
If all went the way it should …
Squires hurried off with palfreys, brought up the powerful destriers, most of them fractious with the heat and the imminence of action. Others fetched pauldron, rerebrace and vambrace for the great who could afford this new fashion; there was a clattering and clanking as they began fitting this extra armour to arms and shoulders.
Thweng found his squire at his elbow, leading Garm by the rein. Garm was solid as a barn and old enough not to be champing froth at the possibility that this was more than his master at practice. He was black and gleaming, the polish of him thrown up by a light sheen of sweat and the white trapper bearing the three green popinjays of the Thwengs.
Sir Marmaduke climbed on and settled himself, took the shield and the lance from young John, who then climbed on to his own horse and tried not to tremble. He was no older than Alexander de Plant, Thweng thought, moodily studying the Torwald’s tight nap of trees with a jaundiced eye, and I promised his mother I would keep him from harm.
I brought him because I owed the King four men and he qualifies as one, but barely. It was a carping childish rebellion on my part, for all the other good men I have supplied to the Edwards, father and son. Now my petulance has put this lad in danger …
He turned.
‘Remain here with the rounceys,’ he growled. ‘No sense in risking them before we know what lies ahead.’
No one spoke, though John went tight around the lips and reddened even more than he had in the heat, because he knew what his lord had done and why – and was shamed at the relief he felt for it. Thweng returned to looking sourly at the wood. A lance was probably more liability than asset in there, he thought.
He waited, watching with his plain, battered old barrel-helm tucked under his shield arm while the feverish knights had plumes fixed, demanded tippets and banners, both of which hung limply in the breathless air. The younger ones, who had never been in such an event before, called out greetings in high, nervous voices, pretending nonchalance and a boldness they did not entirely feel.
Thweng saw Hereford scowl at his nephew as Henry de Bohun fought the mouth of his huge bay, foam-sweated round the neck already and baiting on the spot with huge hooves. De Bohun, encumbered with shield and lance, had his helm clamped under his lance arm and was trying to see over the ornament of it. The helm was a great domed full-face affair, draped in a fold of blue and gold mantle, surrounded by a coloured blue and gold twist of cloth like a Saracen’s turban, surmounted by a padded heraldic lion in gold cloth spouting three great plumes of heron feathers in blue and yellow.
He was as proud of this new-fangled confection as he was of his ruinously expensive horse, which he called Durandal after Roland’s sword – but, at this moment, he would cheerfully have rendered it into several hundredweight of offal.
‘Tight rein that mount, boy,’ his uncle called out, irritated and hot, trying to argue with Gloucester while mounting his own equally annoyed warhorse, which fretted under the leather barding round its head.
‘Look to your conrois, my lords – and mount those damned Welsh,’ bawled the Earl of Gloucester; the Earl of Hereford, hands full of rein and mouth full of his own egret plumes as he fought with helm and horse, fumed helplessly at this de Clare imposition of command.