Gib was caught by it. Dog Boy saw his wild face, the staring eyes, the red maw of his mouth, twisting with shock as he realised that he was too big, that the skinny runt he had always despised for his size could get under the rolling weight, but not him.
It scooped Gib up and carried him back, back to the far wall, and Dog Boy, head buried in his arms, heard the cracking splinter of bones and a last, despairing shriek in the cold dark.
Temple Bridge, Annick Water
Division of the Apostles Across The Earth – July, 1297
The rain lisped down, dripping from the bell hanging over their heads on the arch of the glistening wet timber bridge. Hal knew the bell was called Gloria because Bangtail Hob had told everyone so, squinting into the falling mirr to read the name etched on it and proud of his ability to recognise the letters, however long he had taken to spell them out.
The bell could be rung by tugging on a white rope, pearled with sliding water drops now, to warn the Poor Knights of the Temple Ton that travellers were coming to them in peace, seeking succour or sanctuary. Hal fervently wished he was in the small Temple out of a rain as fine as querned flour, soaking the men who were huddled on the bridge, waiting and watching the men on horseback on the far side.
His own men had taken off their quilted gambesons, trading the protection for the agility; the rain had soaked the garments heavy as armour. They had tied their right shoe into their belt or round their necks, for the right was the bracing foot, rutted into the churned earth and needing all the grip it could get. The left, shoved forward, required a measure of protection and, though it would not divert a cut or a stab or the crush of a hoof, the leather of a shoe was still a comfort.
Hal did not expect hooves. His men were bunched and dripping, a hedge of spears and blades and wicked hooks, and Hal expected that the English horse – decently armoured serjeants – would climb off and tramp on foot the length of the bridge to attack.
He wished they would not, that they would try to ride them down and suffer ruin for it. More than that, he wished they would just go away, thinking like sensible men, and that, any day – any moment – they would all be friends, with the Scots back in the King’s peace and no harm done.
More than that, he wished that John the Lamb, wherever he was, had seen sense and was not trying to bring the reived cattle out of the dripping trees and across the bridge to join them. That would be all the provocation the English needed.
The last hope was driven from him by the distant bawl of a miserable cow. Sim slid up beside him, rusted rain running off the brim of his iron hat and his crossbow swathed in his cloak to try to keep the string from getting wet and slack.
‘John the Lamb,’ he said and Hal nodded. He saw the head of the English captain come up, cocked to hear the same mournful lowing and knew, with certainty, that both were now caught in the whirling dance of it, borne along to the inevitability of blood and slaughter by honour, duty, chivalry and desperation. And all over a handful of rieved coos for a hungry army waiting for their betters to set seal to their deals.
He looked at the man’s shield, the six little legless birds on it, three on top of a diagonal stroke, three beneath. Argent, a bend between six martlet, gules, he thought automatically to himself and smiled. All those days of bruised knuckles and scowls as his father dinned Heraldry into him – no, no, ye daftie, a bird which is facing you is full aspect, any other beast similarly displayed is affronty. Repeat, affronty.
No practical use at all, for he still had no idea who the man opposite him was, or even if he was English. The only thing he did know was that the martlet marked him as a fourth son and that, in a moment, they would be trying to cleave sharp bars of iron into each other.
Furneval sat as haughtily as he could while rain slithered off his bascinet and down under the maille; his padded, quilted gambeson was sodden and weighed four times as much as normal and so would those of the rest of his men – they would feel the dragging weight when they had to dismount and fight in them, as well as the maille, the heavy shields and the lances, too long to make comfortable spears.
For now, he was watching the sudden antheap stir of the little group under the bridge-bell arch. Behind, his men shifted in their ranks, hunching down so that their rimmed iron helmets were all that could be seen above the long shields. That and the lances.
Behind that, Furneval knew, was William de Ridre, up in the trees with even more men and watching closely what happened here. Furneval felt the surge in him, a fire of pride and joy, for he had been chosen to demonstrate the power of the Percy and had his own lord, de Ridre, watching him do it.