The Welsh, Henry de Bohun saw, were going to ground, which was sensible when you had no protection and were not bound by the chivalry of knighthood. He curled a sweating lip at them and urged his horse forward.
Addaf saw the splendid lord, the padded gold lion and plumes on his helmet nodding, the trailing blue and red tippets fluttering prettily and thought, well, there’s the last we will see of that uffar gwirion and good riddance to another English. He saw the muttering-anxious squire kick his own horse up past the Welsh and revised his thoughts to include him, too; a shaft hit a branch near him, clattered off into the trees and he forgot the pair entire, bawling at his men to stop shaming him and kill the Scotch bowmen.
Already, though, he saw the Scots archers slink away, knew their task was done; behind them, no doubt formed and ready, would be a host of close-ranked men bristling with spears and, vaguely through the trees, he saw a helmeted horseman.
A spearwall, archers and knights – there was no way through this without a hard fight which needed foot and spears rather than just his nearly-hundred of archers and a lot of heavy horse. He handed command to Coch Deyo and shouldered back through the wood and into the sunlight, squinting at the great horde of wilting, patient horsemen. He padded across like a stiff wolf to Hereford and Gloucester, careful to report what he had seen to both of them at once.
They took it well enough and the young one, the de Clare, was hot for going on but the older Earl of Hereford was more clever, Addaf saw, seeing at once that he might win with his five hundred heavy horse, but would ruin them doing it. Clever, too, the Welshman saw, not to admit that was why he hesitated; instead, he ordered the walrus-faced lord called Thweng to ride forward with his mesnie and see how many men opposed them.
And, as Addaf turned to lope back to his men, anxious about what Coch Deyo had done with them in his absence, the Earl of Hereford suddenly barked out:
‘Where is my nephew?’
Henry de Bohun was in an oven with the sweat stinging his eyes, the lance rattling and banging off low branches, so that he had to lean it back on one shoulder. The proud trailing tippets of his helmet seemed to hook on every branch and threatened to tear the whole cumbersome affair from his head.
Which might be a relief, he thought to himself – until the first arrow strikes my nose. Through the blurry slit of his helmet, he saw a rider, a vague figure and no more. Behind, he saw – like a deer moving and revealing itself in the dapple of sunlit wood – a great mass of men and spears. He paused, considering, looked right and left and saw no one at all.
Which is at least a mercy, he thought, blowing frantically upward to try and dislodge the sweat coursing down his face and over his lips, for I would not know Scotch from Welsh in here.
It was idiocy to go on – stupidity to be this close to start with – so he started to turn the head of Durandal, who did not like putting his back to an enemy and resisted, baiting on the spot. Cursing, de Bohun savaged his mouth a little to get his attention – and then froze.
The rider had moved, was shouting and waving a little axe. He was on a palfrey and wore a splendid jupon of gold, blazoned with a red lion, a bloody replica of the gold ones Henry himself wore. On the man’s head, clapped atop the open-faced bascinet, was a little domed cap in red leather surrounded by a circlet of spiked gold.
A crown.
The King himself and without a coterie of knights, only spearmen and only one or two in maille and plate to show that they might have been nobiles – but afoot. Not another horseman in sight.
The blood shushed in Henry’s ears, thundering deafeningly inside the cave of his steel helm and he almost cried out. Then he fumbled the lance round, battering it through the clutch of branches until he could couch it, kicked Durandal so that he squealed and rode out at as fast a trot as he could manage, cursing the tangle of his tippets.
‘Ogre!’ he yelled, for it was only chivalrous to announce his presence and not ambush like an outlaw. ‘Face me in single combat. I am Henry de Bohun, knight. It will be glorious …’
Bruce was anxious and fretting; he was sure that the English Van had balked at turning to their left and were pushing straight ahead, which was to the good.
Yet Jamie and his riders, now dismounting to fight on foot, had reported that the Van and the Main were coming up together and the third Battle was further to the right of the English, coming up by another road which would bring it out along the Way, to St Ninian’s and the castle itself.