‘Under the smoke they make,’ Wallace had answered laconically and had then watched Buchan ride away, looking right and left constantly. Looking for the Lothian lord, Wallace thought, So I know what business Buchan has and where. At least his quarrel with his wife and her new wee lover is a genuine, if selfish, excuse and not some callow tale like others presented to justify their absence.
But their lack had been noted by those of the nobiles who had turned up, sitting in their fine trappings on barded horses – few of them the fearsome and expensive destrier – feeling their bowels turn to water.
Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist
Um den rechten Glauben allermeist
It drifted on the wind, sometimes louder, sometimes fading, but a constant reminder of what Longshanks had brought. Thirty thousand, some said he had gathered – the largest army ever seen. Not now, the sensible heads pointed out, for there is less than half of it left.
But even that was more than enough and Hal could see the nobiles knew it. Brabancons, Gascons, Welsh spears and bows, the scouts reported with assurance – and, above all, three thousand heavy horse. We have ten thousand men, Hal thought bleakly, with only five hundred of it horse and not all of that fit to match the English knights if his own men were anything to judge – twenty hard fighters on tough little garrons, with latchbows, Jeddart staffs, daggers, little axes and less armour.
Dass er uns behute an unserm Ende,
Wenn wir heimfahr’n aus diesem liende.
‘Christ, I wisht they would be doucelike,’ said a voice, thick with fear. Hal swivelled; Sir William Hay of Lochwarret, desperate to wipe his mouth and face, kept raising his hand, then remembering his steel-segmented gauntlet and letting it fall again.
‘What are they chantin’?’ demanded Ramsay of Dalhousie, his bascinet-framed face the colour of spoiled suet.
Kyrieleis!
‘I do not ken,’ Wallace answered languidly, grinning, ‘but I jalouse they are done, so it matters little.’
‘Ye mun find,’ said a gruffer voice, ‘that they are calling on the Holy Ghost to protect them. It is also the first of several verses, so they are not done with it yet.’
Hal knew the grizzled Robert de Ros of Wark by sight, though he had not known the man was any expert on the Brabancon. Wallace, however, resplendent in his Guardian’s gold jupon, blazoned with the red lion of Scotland, did not seem surprised. He had cut the tangle of his hair into a style more suited for the Guardian of Scotland and clipped his beard short and neat – but the man beneath had not been changed one whit.
‘Aye, weel,’ he said, turning from one to the other of the clustered knights, a grim, lopsided grin twisting his face. ‘It is a nice tune. I have brought you to the ring, gentilhommes. Now ye dance if ye can.’
He nodded to Hal and then jerked his head to send him and the hobilars, the light horse, far out to the right flank, into the trees to hide and watch and, hopefully, fall on the rear of English knights once they had fallen foul of the great ring of men which stood there.
Wallace watched them go. He liked the new lord of Herdmanston and wished him well – the man had uncovered the business with Bruce and the Stone with skill and stuck to his word, though Wallace did not know what to do with the knowledge of it.
On the one hand, a valuable relic of the realm had been saved. On the other, red murder had been done, by Bruce and the Comyn. If we still stand by the end of the day, he thought, I will have to think more on it.
He shifted and looked right and left at the nobiles of Scotland. Steady as an egg on a stick, he thought morosely, and those who are not thinking on how to get advantage over their immediate neighbour and enemy are wondering how to hang on to their lands and titles.
They will run, he thought.
Sim thought so, too, and said as much, though Hal tried to ignore him. It was that Sim Craw rasp, perhaps, that prompted Nebless Clemmie to force out from the ranks and alongside, turning his ruin of a face towards Hal.
It was not entirely true to call him Nebless, since he had half the proboscis left, though the wen that had caused the loss had left a disturbing hole. For all that, it was an honest face and a Herdmanston one, which was the meat of his words.
‘The lads,’ he said to Hal in his rheumy voice, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure they were still agreed, ‘wish it known that they are all proud to be at yer stirrup, my lord. Ye ken us and you are auld in the horn when it comes to red war.’
Hal blinked, a little stunned by this. Since he had been old enough to know his place, he had taken his rank as a given, however slight it may be in the eyes of greater lords. Riding a shaggy pony across to a rickle of sticks with the Herdmanston oxen in tow for some poor plough got him a knuckle on a seamed forehead from a peasant who relied for his life on the loan of the beasts.