His teeth were feral as the grin widened and he hefted the long, clotted sword.
‘Weel – much can break in the proving, as any smith will tell ye,’ he added, then raised his chin and raised his voice to a bull bellow.
‘Hold,’ he roared. ‘Never be minding the Bawsant flag and their wee chirrups. They are heavy horse, same as ye have been ruining all the day, my bonnie lads. Stay in the ring . . .’
The Templars came on, across the field where they had ruined the left schiltron, ignoring the mad, fleeing screamers of the other two, leaving them to the snarling, vengeful spears and swords of the plundering Welsh and Brabancons. They came after the final spear-ring, the one they knew must have Wallace in it; there were a handful only, but seemed a grim black cliff of serjeants, with two white streaks marking the true knights. Above it, like an accusing stare, streamed the black-barred Beau Seant banner.
The Order have ruined themselves, Hal thought, wild and sad. Ruined, as sure as if they had cursed God and spat on the Pope – what merchant, lord or priest, after this, will believe the word of a Templar, entrust his riches to the care of a brotherhood dedicated to saving Christians and who now prey on them?
They were a tight black fist aimed at the last mis-shapen ring of spearmen, the two white knuckles of Brian De Jay and John de Sawtrey blazing in the front. Like a long-haired star, the black-clad serjeants of the Order trailed other knights after them like embers, but these could not move with the arrogant fast trot of the Templars.
Poor knights, Hal thought bitterly, supposed to ride two to a horse – yet even the least of the Templars had destrier that were better than some ridden by the chivalry, who were stumbling over the dead and dying at no better than a walk.
The Templars trotted, the highly trained warhorses delicate as cats. It took five years to train the best warhorse, Hal recalled wildly, almost hearing his father’s voice in his head. From two, before it can even be ridden, until the age of seven when, if you have done it properly, you have a mount which will charge a stone wall if the rider does not flinch. With luck, the beast will survive to the age of twelve, when it will be too old for the business of war and you put it out to breed more of its kind.
No sensible horse will suffer this, so what you have is a mad beast on four legs – and if you add a rider who fears only displeasing God you have a combination fit to punch a hole through the Gates of Hell.
The mad beasts broke into a canter; someone whimpered and Hal saw that it was the whey-faced boy, his filthy face streaked with tears.
‘Stay in the ring. Hold to the ring.’
Wallace’s bellow went out on a rising note, growing more shrill as the ground trembled; the last file captains beat and chivvied their men, the last men-at-arms, the armoured nobiles who had opted to fight on foot, braced themselves and hunched into their jazerant and maille.
‘Hold to the ring.’
Beyond, the black tide curled on them, their iron-rimmed kettle hats painted black round the rim, white on the crown and with a great red cross to the fore. Their reins were loosed entirely, leaving both hands free, and the crosses on their black shields were like streaks of blood.
‘Hold to the ring.’
Deus lo vult.
The Templars throated it out on the last few thundering strides and came in like a ram, knee-to-knee and at a rising canter where, all day, no horseman beyond the first clatter of them had managed better than a fast walk.
There should have been a great shudder, a splintering of spears, a loud lion roar of desperate, defiant Scots – but the ring, too thinned by bolts and arrows, too worn by fear, shattered like an egg hit by a forge hammer.
The whey-faced boy was plucked from Hal’s side and torn away with a vanished, despairing shriek as a lance skewered him; the rider swept past Hal like a black wind. On the other side, a great shaft went over Hal’s head, slamming into men like a swinging gate – Hal fisted his battered shield into the rider’s armoured foot, braced straight out and high on his mount’s shoulders and the man reeled wildly, then was gone, tilting and crashing into the mass of men.
The Templars carved through the struggle of foot like claws through an apple, bursting out the far side, lances splintered or tossed aside, their great warhorses rutting up the blood-skeined turf in ploughed riggs as they fought to turn. The riders hauled out swords or little axes.
‘Run,’ yelled a voice, but Hal was already moving. A lumbering bear he seemed, his limbs moving as if he was underwater, fighting a current – yet he remembered hurdling a dead horse, remembered the whip and smear of thin branches, the collision with a tree that spun him half-round and lost him his shield.