Addaf caught Thweng’s eye and nodded briefly; once he would have knuckled his forehead, but he was too old to care these days unless it was a lord who mattered. Besides, he remembered the Yorkshire knight as a man unimpressed by such things; he had met him years before – by God, during his first campaign, in fact, against the Wallace.
Thweng’s was not a face you could forget, with eyebrows so bushy that they looked stuck on with fish glue for some mummer’s performance. Two deep, vertical furrows, like the gills of a porpoise, ploughed from the wings of his nostrils to the bearded angles of his wide mouth and the upper lip hung, ape-long, over the lower, which made his drooping moustache seem more baleful.
Thweng did not recognize Addaf, which made the archer smile wryly. He had been a husky, hump-shouldered youth, dark and sullen, in those days, and was now a grizzled, iron-grey veteran – but, from his cool gaze and quiet nod, it was clear the Yorkshire lord knew the worth of the archers. Clear, too, from his frown that he wished they were on foot, flitting through the trees rather than riding.
Addaf would have fervently agreed if they had spoken on it; he led the Van down from the blazing brass of sunlight into the immediate cooling balm of the Torwald shade, such a relief that men gasped aloud. Addaf filtered his mounted men out as far as he could, like a fan on either side of the narrow trackway, threading their mounts through the trees; he felt the place close on him.
Bigod, thought Thweng, here is as good a spot for an ambush as any Vegetius could come up with. Others thought so, too, for the sighs and cries about being in the shade faded and died. Tight-packed in twos and threes, they rode knee to knee in a deep, dark green gloom with only a creak and jingle that was suddenly too loud.
Five hundred at least, Thweng thought moodily, strung out like wet washing; he felt, in the dappled closeness, as if he was under water.
They burst out of the Torwald like a shout of relief, into a blaze of sun and a new barrier ahead – yet another scar of woodland, though this was the New Park, a mere imp of the Great Satan that was Torwald. Beyond that, no more than six English miles away, lay Stirling Castle.
Hereford, his voice muffled and booming inside his splendid helm, bawled out orders which Gloucester, his own helmet tucked under one arm, took delight in repeating so that they would be understood; his red face was beaming with pleasure and heat.
‘Sir Henry’, he yelled to de Bohun, ‘is to command the foot forward while the horse gathers itself. Scour the enemy ahead, sirrah, with all despatch.’
Addaf looked sourly at the great confection that was Henry de Bohun, brilliant in his bright blue surcote and jupon and horse trappings, all studded with little gold lions. He was, with that great lion-topped helmet clapped on his head, identical to his uncle save for the red slash through his shield. A bowl of frumenty, Addaf thought scornfully, and about as much use to me and mine, look you – but it was the way of things that an English lord oversaw what the Welsh did, even if he was a cont gwirion on four legs.
Addaf signalled with a wave of his sword and the Welsh dismounted at last, the horse-holders calming their charges while the rest padded forward like hunting hounds, bows smarted and arrows nocked. They filtered into the trees while de Bohun followed and his squire, Dickon, trailed at his back on his own palfrey, encumbered with spare lance and a host of other weapons his sire might need.
Thweng watched them go while the rest of the Van horse came up and reordered, the bright face of the lord of Badenoch like a child’s slapped arse as he arrived at Sir Marmaduke’s elbow.
‘The rebels will not stand, it seems,’ he said in polite French and wrinkled his snub nose. ‘A pity. I owe the Bruce a mighty blow.’
Bruce is owed one, true enough, Thweng thought to himself, but you are not the one to give it, little lord. He wondered, though, if the Bruce he had seen was the same one he had known in younger, tourney days. Did he still deserve the title of second-best knight in Christendom?
Addaf dashed sweat from his eyebrows and blew it off the end of his moustache. There were men ahead; he had seen them filtering away ahead of them, keeping out of decent bowshot. Beyond, he heard shouts and a familiar rattle of spears, a sound he remembered well.
‘Ware – spearmen,’ he bawled out in Welsh, and then repeated it in English, so Henry de Bohun knew of it, though whether that lord understood or heard was a mystery, since he was a faceless metal creature who gave no signs.
Arrows flicked and rattled suddenly, so that the Welsh went into a half-crouch, searching for targets and returning fire. An arrow spanged off Henry’s helmet, the ring of it jerking him so that the warhorse’s head came up and it blew out heavily in protest.