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.
They had chased these foragers a long way over the fields and Furneval had some sympathy for their desperate plundering – small though it was, the Scots force at Annick still needed fodder and meat – and some admiration of their skill.
Fast riders, skilled at herding the small, black cattle, he had been thinking to himself, so no strangers to such thieving, and it was right and proper that, even though a truce pertained here, such raiders were not permitted to plunder as they chose. They were, until announcements were made to the contrary, rebels after all and just a rabble of brigands. Now that Furneval had seen them for himself he was sure of the second part and suspicious of the first.
They were waiting at the far end of a narrow bridge across a steep-banked, undergrowth choked stream called the Annick Water, knowing that this was their best chance of defence. It was clever and determined, the weapons they had were like polearms only worse, so that Furneval felt a flicker of doubt, a sharp little dart that flew into his heart like a sliver of ice.
A sensible man would have let them go, with their sumpter cart of stolen rye and wheat and their handful of cattle, but de Ridre was not about to go back to Percy and admit that a raggedy bunch of Scots foot had forced back sixty mounted serjeants.
A sensible man would not try to ride down a hedge of spears, but dismount and march on them, and Furneval would do that, at least; he had seen what spear-bristling foot could do at Dunbar. He wished for some crossbows, for they had split the spear rings of the Scots apart at Dunbar. He wished for de Ridre to send him a message telling him to pull off and leave it. He knew neither wish was possible, yet he waited in the lisping rain, ever hopeful.
Then the first cow stumbled out of the woods with others at its back and men behind, running their weary, stumbling horses like shambling bears and sealing the fate of them all.
Hal watched as the rider reached up and dropped the great sugarloaf helm over the bascinet, becoming a faceless metal creature in an instant. Furneval adjusted his grip on the shield with the birds, blew out to make sure the cruciform breathing holes were clear and wished his nose was not so big, since it squashed against the full-face helm.
Hal watched him tap the helm a little to settle it, then draw out his long sword; he barked something and the men behind him climbed off their horses.
‘Ah, ye thrawn, bloody limmer,’ Hal heard himself say wearily. Too much to hope they would be stupid and try to ride them down.
‘Drop the kine, ye bliddy fools!’ hissed Sim to no-one in particular, but even if he had bellowed it, neither John the Lamb nor Dand would have heard. Even if they had heard, they would not have obeyed, for they had harried and herded this meagre handful of black cows for miles and every time they looked at the green-streaked arse of one they saw roasted beef, dripping and savoury.
Yet it was death to them and everyone knew it. The rider with the six red martlets swept his sword up like a bar of light – then brought it down and a roar went up from the horde of throats behind him as they surged past on to the bridge.
‘Stand fast, lads,’ bawled Sim, switching back the cloak and sticking one foot in the crossbow stirrup. He hauled it up without using the belt-hook, stuck in a four-sided bolt and brought it up to his chest.
‘Dirige, Domine, Deus meus in conspecto tuo viam meam.’
Hal stared at Bangtail Hob as the man crossed himself. Direct my path, Lord my God, in your sight – he had not known that the likes of Hob knew the English, never mind the Latin. Life was full of surprises, even now.
‘Christ be praised,’ roared Sim.
‘For ever and ever,’ the men roared back.
‘Mither of God,’ whined Will Elliott, and Hal watched the bobbing wall of shields and spears and helms crush itself down the length of wooden bridge, while John the Lamb and Dand veered off, heading for the bank and throwing themselves off their horses; cattle scattered, bawling mournfully.
He saw, too, in a fixed instant that seared itself on his mind, the horseman in his great helm and shield of birds turn away from the bridge and the backs of his men, watched the bunched flank muscles of the powerful beast as he spurred it towards John and Dand.
‘Sim,’ he yelled and pointed. Cursing, Sim levelled the bow and shot; the bolt hissed past the hindquarters of the horse and Sim howled with frustration, frantically spanning the weapon again.
Furneval caught up with the fleeing Dand as he plootered and plunged through the tangling bushes and undergrowth, hearing the wet thunder behind him closing in and the whimper in him rising to a scream.
‘Jump, Dand, jump.’
He heard it, saw, out of the corner of his eye, John the Lamb spring up like the beast he was named for and spin in the air, a whirl of already sodden arms and legs that hit the black ripple of the water and exploded it to spray.
He was a step away. One step and a leap and his lungs burning …
Furneval gave the sword a little wrist flick, brought it back and then forward and up. The last third of blade caught Dand on the back of his head, exploding it into black blood and shards. His body stumbled on two, three steps, then fell, tumbled over and over, then slid in a tangle down the bank and slithered softly into the water.
Furneval reined round, knowing it had been a perfect stroke and hoping de Ridre had been watching. He reached up and hauled off the full-face helm, feeling the cool blast of damp wind on his sweating face, then half turned in the saddle, stiff-necked with maille, to see what his men were doing.
He heard a bellowing, as if there had been a bull among the cows – then the second bolt from the roaring fury that was Sim took him in the centre of his bascinet-framed face, a sudden