The irony was not lost on him as he rode into an avenue of cheers and furious joy from those who had heard that the English Van had been repulsed, that a proud English champion lay dead like an offering, slain in single combat by their hero king. A good start, for all the sin in it, Bruce thought, and tried not to concern himself with the Curse of Malachy.
Yet it was lurking there, made itself plain when he rode up to Randolph’s thousands and found no Earl of Moray, only Duncan Kirkpatrick of Torthorwald, anxious and stumping up and down in front of the serried ranks. At a glance, Bruce saw that the best of the Battle was gone; only the ill-armed were here, stripped down to a shift that barely covered their decency and leaning carelessly on their tall shafts; some had only shaved and fire-hardened points, some had strange hand-scythes and long shafts with other crude blades lashed to them, but none was a proper spear or bill.
I shall defend myself with the longest stick I have, Bruce thought.
Duncan Kirkpatrick, his face twisted as if in pain, blinked the sweat out of his eyes and knelt dutifully, thinking to himself that he was damned by Hell itself to be the one having to explain to his king what Sir Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, was doing.
Bruce felt the rise of panic in him, welling up like shit from a privy as he stared at Duncan. Kirkpatrick’s kinsman, he recalled. Where is that auld dug – and Hal of Herdmanston? If we do not get them back, their mission successful, then we are done with this day and possibly this life. And where is Randolph with the best-armed men we have? The thought that he might have deserted like Atholl almost crushed him, but he heard Jamie Douglas give a surprised grunt and then a snort of derision.
‘What in the name of Christ’s Wounds is he thinking?’
‘May the Lord forgive you,’ said fat little Gilbert de la Haye piously and Jamie barked out a crow laugh, pointing with one hand down across the Dryfield.
‘Not me that needs forgiveness, my lord,,’ he answered. ‘Him.’
They all looked. Out on the Dryfield, long hundreds of men skeined forward, their spears glinting, the Randolph bedsheet banner fluttering boldly alongside the saltire. It was his own mesnie, stripped from this command, all the well-armed and best-armoured men committing the unthinkable – the unforgivable – and marching unsupported out into the open against heavy horse.
Coming at them, hard and fast, Bruce saw, the pennons and streamers and blazing flags, the lances and tippets and heraldry glowing brightly through the golden haze.
Clifford’s checky banner he recognized. And Beaumont’s. The black fork-tailed lion of the Stapledons. The Leyburns. Tailleboys. Christ’s Bones – three hundred or more heavy horse of Clifford’s command, bearing down on a little knot of men, already coalescing into a shield ring, as seeming vulnerable and small as a robin’s egg in the middle of a busy stone path. Bruce felt the breath squeeze from him with the vice-crush of it.
‘What possessed him?’ gasped an incredulous de la Haye.
Carelessness, thought the Dog Boy, panting in the heat-flushed ranks of men behind Jamie; The Earl of Moray was supposed to watch for this and has missed it. Now, too late, he puts himself out like a stopper in a leather bottle to prevent the English going further towards Stirling’s fortress.
Glory, Jamie Douglas thought laconically. Randolph has heard what the King did with the rearguard and seeks to outdo it, rub all our noses in his paladin splendour. He did not know what would be worse: that the Earl of Moray be ridden into the dust like a martyr or skewer the English to ruin like a hero. Either way, he thought moodily, we will never hear the end of it.
‘He sought to prevent them reaching the castle, Your Grace,’ Duncan Kirkpatrick offered miserably.
Bruce had his own answer to the why of it, watching with a sick, stone-heavy lump of fear in him as the English closed like a fist on the schiltron.
The Curse of Malachy.
Clifford could not believe it and said so. Beaumont, shaking sweat from his eyebrows like a dog does water, agreed with him, yet the sight gave him a sudden burst of savage exultant triumph.
‘Let them come on further,’ he bawled out, red-faced and beaming. ‘The more ground we give them, the easier they are cut off and cut up.’
‘Give them any more,’ Gray answered wryly, ‘and they will have it all, my lord.’
He meant nothing by it that anyone else could ascertain, but Beaumont swelled like an angry toad and astonished everyone by his ugly snarl; those who knew the tale of it were doubly shocked, for if anyone deserved Sir Henry de Beaumont’s undying respect it was the man who had saved his life.
‘If you are so concerned about them,’ Beaumont savaged out, his face sweat-greased and dark with suffused blood, ‘then feel free to flee.’
Now Gray boiled up, almost standing in the stirrups as he quivered with fury.
‘You dare?’ he demanded. ‘You dare say that to me, sirrah. To me?’
‘If it fits, wear it,’ Beaumont growled, realizing he had been too harsh, yet unable to retreat from it.