The arrow hit him below the right eye, drove downward, smashed the teeth on his right jaw, came out under the lip of the bascinet, speared through the coif and into the join between neck and shoulder, finding the thin treachery of space between flesh and the protection of padding, iron and maille.
Not long after, a rider churned his way over the litter of bodies and blood and bits that had been men until he found the panting, gasping figure he sought. Clotted with gore to the elbows, his wild hair stiff with it, Wallace snarled like a mad dog, dancing his own bloody jig in the raving centre of a knot of axemen. His new lion-blazoned jupon was shredded and he had long since hurled himself from the unfamiliar horse to fight on foot.
The rider was almost attacked, but someone spotted that he was the Flemish knight, the kin of Moray. Wallace heard the man’s news and the axemen, panting and straining impatiently at the leash to be led back into the mad slaughter, were rocked back on their heels at the great, rolling, dog-howl of pain and anguish that came from the flung-back throat of their hero.
Hal saw the knot of riders split from the mass. The pikes were being flung to one side now, the squares melting away into vengeful packs of men dragging out long daggers, swords and falchions. The kerns and caterans, whooping now, unshouldered the long axes looped on their backs and plunged, like joyful leaping lambs, into the slaughter.
But a knot of riders headed for the brig, led by a man whose silver shield had a red slash and some birds on it. Argent, a fesse gules between three papingoes, vert, Hal translated and grinned to himself, wondering where the Auld Sire was at this moment. The arms of Sir Marmaduke Thweng, he remembered suddenly, the knight who had delivered Isabel and Bisset to the camp at Irvine.
Headed, he saw with a sudden lurch of utter terror, for the ragged knot of wavering spears blocking the escape route, already beset by fleeing hordes of the desperate, where a familiar figure stood in the midst of a misshapen copse of shafts like a rock in a flood.
His father.
‘Sim,’ he bawled and started running, whether Sim followed or not. A figure cannoned into him, realised he was an enemy and spilled away, weaponless and panicked. Another came at him, swinging a sword; Hal took it on the shield, cut left, then right and lurched through the blood the man spewed down his front as he died.
His horse was flagging and, later, Thweng realised it had probably saved him, for it let Angels overtake him and smash into the pikes in front of him, a terrible rending, ripping sound of metal and splintering wood. The French Method, he thought again, seeing a warhorse leap entirely off the ground, as if trying to clear a fence. It smashed down and died almost at once, but the carnage it created broke the hedge of points apart.
Thweng hit the remnants, striking left and right, trotting through almost unopposed, a handful of knights trailing after him. The helmetless, white-haired man weaved out of the press, almost in front of him; behind him came a snarling, stocky figure in a torn, studded coat, who swung the tangle of a blue, white-crossed banner at the legs of Sir Marmaduke’s staggering horse and brought it down.
It was the tourney that saved him, the much-used roll from the saddle of a falling horse that had kept him in the fray many times before. He hit the scarred planks of the bridge and felt the pain lance into his shoulder – dislocated, he thought, perhaps even broken. Then he was up and on his feet, facing the white-haired man, who came at him, shield up, sword ready, his mouth open and gasping from weariness. Behind him, the man with the banner struggled to bring it upright in one hand and fend off the Angels clattering past.
A Sientcler, Thweng saw as his sword spanged off the cock rampant on the shield. Not the Auld Templar of Roslin, though – he took the weak return blow, stepped, half spun, smashed his shield forward despite the pain that stabbed him with and saw the old man go down, the sword spilling from his grasp.
‘My lord . . .’
An Angel had flung himself from his horse, his earnest bascinet-framed face flushed and concerned. He handed the reins to Thweng in a clear indication and Thweng felt a pang at the youthful, careless courage that put chivalry beyond life. He wondered where along the way he had lost it in himself -then the old man at his feet coughed and stirred.
‘Up,’ he said, dragging the man to his feet. ‘Sir Marmaduke Thweng.’
‘Sir John,’ gasped the man. ‘Herdmanston.’
‘Do you yield?’
‘My lord . . .’ the Angel said warningly, seeing men spill up the bridge to them. He cast the horse reins at Sir Marmaduke and moved to meet them, shield and sword up.
‘I yield,’ the old man declared.
‘Just as well,’ Thweng answered, dropping his sword and putting a supporting arm round him. He threw the reins away and, supporting the old man, hobbled after the ambling horse.