After Flodden (32 page)

At the first glimpse of the keep, rising skywards through the morning mist as if to speak with the eagles, the commander called a halt. The woods were quiet, not yet woken. Nothing stirred. He
stroked his beard and listened, the frosted damp settling on his lip. Satisfied that they were not expected, he gathered his lieutenants to issue his orders. Dismounting, they assembled at the
front of the troops, but their leader had barely started to speak when the air darkened, and hummed. Startled, they looked up, covering their faces with their hands, but it was too late. Arrows
flew into their midst like a swarm of hornets, quivering as they found their target in breast and eye, throat and back.

Even if he’d been a praying man, Murdo Montgomery could not have asked for a finer prize than to have the leaders caught together in a circle neat as a bull’s-eye. From their eyries,
he and his archers had picked off half of them with their first fusillade, though the commander escaped by ducking beneath falling bodies while he fumbled for his horn and blared the signal for the
army’s archers and billsmen to be loosed.

As English arrows found them, Borderers tumbled out of the trees at the feet of men whose billhooks were waiting. But while too many were lost this way, Crozier’s ambushers were the more
skilled, and by the time the air had cleared enough for Dacre’s fighters to scan the tree-tops, Crozier’s men had flown, to await the soldiers when they reached the keep.

All but leaderless, save for the commander whose voice was drowned out by the uproar, the troops stampeded their way to the castle. There they were brought up short by a sea of felled pines that
lay between them and the castle’s outer walls. They could get closer only on foot. A fluster of abandoned horses added to the disorder, and before those few men who kept a calm head could
trample their way over the trunks and branches, the first assault from the castle rained down on them, sending their already panicked steeds fleeing into the trees, and scything the front ranks of
the army with a hail of arrows, gunshot and cannon fire.

On the battlements, Crozier’s men were busy. Wat had explained to Louise how to ram shot into her gun and train her sights on her target, but there was no room for her at the walls, where
men crowded every inch. Her only use was to reload the serpentines for Wat and his cronies. The fuses sizzled, the guns screamed, and soon the air was thick with smoke. At her side Hob was hopping
with excitement and passing her the cannonballs as if they were bannocks for the oven, and not the harbinger of some poor fellow’s death.

In the initial flurry, it seemed the enemy had been repelled. Dozens lay dead or maimed around the keep’s walls, their comrades stumbling over them to reach the fight. Stunned by the fury
of the Borderers’ defence, the soldiers’ response was sluggish and weak. But just as it seemed they might be on the point of slinking away they regrouped. There was a few minutes’
silence as they conferred, and then came a surge upon the walls with a roar that made Louise’s stomach somersault. As a volley of arrows began to bring down the men on the battlements,
grappling irons found their hold on the walls, and in a matter of minutes Dacre’s men were dropping into the keep’s outer yard, swords in hand, and knives between their teeth.

Crozier’s marksmen found them, but though many fell, they kept coming, crawling over the walls and scuttling across the yard for cover like ants whose nest has been disturbed.
‘Useless guns can’t reach ’em at this angle,’ roared Wat, as he abandoned his cannon and grabbed a hand-held culverin, leaning dangerously far over the wall to take his
shot. Louise and Hob took charge of his serpentine, but what had been exhilarating a minute before was now slow and, Louise feared, useless, their aim soaring high above the soldiers on the edge of
the wood, and landing deep in the trees.

As the frenzy increased, and the noise with it, an ominous beat began to sound. It could be felt as well as heard beneath the quickening tempo of the fight, the gathering fear on the ramparts.
Doomful as a funeral bell, Dacre’s men were battering at the inner gates: slow, steady, patient. Were they to give, things would get a great deal worse.

It was then Louise heard a splintering of wood and a cheer that set the rooks in uproar. The cheers became a chant, and a minute later the gates cracked, groaned, and gave way. Dacre’s men
were now at the very door of the keep. Should they breach that, the fight would be lost. Crozier’s voice could be heard, shouting instructions. If she had looked over the walls, she would
have seen him, striding among his men, a fierce figure in full fighting gear, his voice sharp as the sword in his hand. But she had no time to look. The fight continued from the battlements, but
there were gaps now on the walls, where the enemy had found its mark.

The injured sprawled behind the parapet. ‘This is hopeless,’ she said to Hob, wiping sweat from her face. ‘We’re wasting our time with this wretched gun. Stay here, while
I fetch water and bindings for these men. And keep your head down.’ Even as she spoke, arrows whined over the walls, spearing the stonework above their heads before falling with a
clatter.

She ran down the stairs, a corkscrew of twists and turns that brought her, at last, to the keep’s well by the kitchens. From the yard she heard the cries of fighting men, and the rasp of
swords. In the great hall, the horses shifted and snorted in the sooty light.

At the kitchen table Mother Crozier was ripping sheets into strips, and bathing them in a solution of water and moss. Without a word, she handed an armful to Louise, along with a gutting knife,
and a pail of water. ‘I have my own dagger,’ Louise stammered, ‘that’s all I need if I have to defend myself.’

‘It’s for the men, lassie. To dig out the shot and arrowheads.’ She made a sickening stirring gesture. ‘And once you’ve dealt with the ones on the tower, get down
here and you can help out with the others as they’re brought in.’ Louise nodded. ‘Of course.’ She left, and then turned. ‘Where’s Crozier?’

‘Out there,’ replied his mother with a nod to the yard, ‘at the gates.’ She caught Louise’s stricken look. ‘He has his faults, that lad, but he’s a fine
one with a sword. It’s possible we might never see him again, but if that’s the case, we’re all lost.’ She returned to her task, and Louise hurried back to the stairs,
wondering if her heart would burst with fear even before the soldiers reached her.

Yet by the time she reached the battlements, she was calm. It was as if desperation had worn itself out, leaving a quietened mind and steady hands, which was as well, given the delicate business
that lay ahead. With Hob’s help, she dragged the wounded to shelter. Most required no more than a bandage, but a few needed the knife, which they endured by clenching their teeth and telling
her to get on with it. ‘Do yer worst, hen.’

Sweat dripped into their eyes, and their fists were clenched so tightly they turned white, but they uttered no murmur. ‘Well done, sir,’ said Louise as they let her dig, shovel and
twist until the shot or lead-tip was removed. Behind her, Hob passed around a flask of aqua vitae. Some took only a swig, before crawling to their feet and picking up their bows and guns. For the
next hour, a willpower and stamina as ancient as the hills they stood on kept them at their posts, as did regular refreshment from Hob’s magical flask.

The most grievously hurt, however, were beyond Louise’s help, and for these men she could do no more than raise water to their lips, and bathe their faces. She watched Hob for any sign
that this was too much to bear, but he continued as if the sight of blood and death meant nothing more personal to him beyond another task to be dealt with. She tapped his helmet, and smiled.
‘You’re a natural nurse, boy. Your father would be proud of you.’

‘Learnt among his horses, didn’t I?’ he said, ‘and they’re a lot harder to handle than these chiels.’

What neither cared to think about was the battle below. The noise had quietened, but far from receding the fight had taken on a new and more deadly quality, as Crozier and his men faced their
opponents hand to hand. Locked together in pairs, they danced and dodged around the yard, swords saying what words never could.

Murdo, Tom and their followers defended the shattered gates, which to many of Dacre’s men were to prove the mouth of hell itself. The Borderers were pitiless, and their savage skills made
an end of all but the doughtiest of the march warden’s servants. But those that did get through the breach were more than a match for the last line of the keep’s defence, and Crozier
knew it. He and his finest fighters kept their backs to the keep and took on each new assailant as if he was their first. Standing at the door was a guard of three, under the charge of Old Crozier.
When men fell, they were hustled and dragged into the keep, where they came under Mother Crozier’s and Louise’s care.

The morning drew on. Swords clashed as duels sparked into life across the yard and at the gates. The glitter of blades was soon doused in blood. As Crozier despatched soldier after soldier, he
sickened of the smell of flesh. Worse, though, was the thought that he and his cousins were only a few yards short of losing the keep. Dacre’s men were thinning, but the danger remained
acute. It would take only a few to storm the keep for their final sentence to be passed.

Images of his mother and grandfather, of Tom, Hob and Louise flashed through his mind as he sidestepped a lunge before taking advantage of the soldier’s momentum to bury his blade in his
heart. As his tiredness grew, so did his ferocity. His sword learnt economy, jettisoning the courtly flourishes of the French fencer he had learned from, and concentrating purely on results.

The few that got beyond the gates faced him with the heady mixture of fear and elation that only a trained warrior can understand. As mettle met mettle, what was at first a professional exercise
became a private conflict between equals, in which a lifetime’s store of technique, experience and daring were the virtues by which one lived or died. Respect for the calibre of the foe left
no room for enmity, only regret, when they came in for the kill.

So it was that, as the sun rose high above the tower, Crozier came face to face with the commander. ‘The spider at the heart of his web, eh?’ said the Englishman, as he parried
Crozier’s opening move. Retreating beyond his reach, the commander gripped his sword in two hands, and swung for him with a force that showed he had kept himself out of the fight these past
few hours.

With the part of his mind that was free to roam Crozier calculated that if the soldiers’ leader was now at his door, the fight was almost at an end. Who would triumph was not yet decided.
Around the yard, unwary English were falling prey to arrows and shot from above as they ran from the gate with swords drawn, but the wisest hugged the walls, where they were assailable by nothing
but sword, and made the Borderers come to them.

Bodies sprawled across the cobbles, treacherous hazards for men blinded by sweat or blood. Hard-pressed and distracted, they could not spare a glance over their shoulder, and the results were
grim. Crozier’s cousin Andrew fell with a cry as his enemy lured him off-balance, but he could do nothing for him while he fought off the commander. He merely noted, from the corner of his
eye, the young man’s final seconds, before the soldier’s blade severed his throat. True Borderer that Andrew was, he did not scream, nor did he let the English fighter win all. As the
sword finished him, his own blade found the soldier’s groin. The pair breathed their last in a clumsy embrace that, when they were later found, looked almost brotherly.

As the commander and Crozier fought, the world contracted to the shifting square in which they duelled. The Englishman was broader but less nimble than Crozier. He had enjoyed more sleep and
food this past week, but nothing depended on his victory beyond his own life. Crozier, meanwhile, was fighting for the people and place he loved. The cobbles were slick with blood, and they
slithered across the yard, matching the other for every slice and thrust.

‘You fight more like a gentleman than a knave,’ panted the commander, when Crozier had allowed him to retrieve his sword, after plucking it from his hand by a movement that was as
elegant as it was lethal. The Borderer kept silent. He would not waste words or breath on a man who wanted to destroy him, but it had been useful to learn that the commander was all but winded. The
next few minutes would be decisive.

Cries came from the battlements and the stable yard, and he cast a quick glance over his shoulder. What he saw threw him momentarily off guard. A cloud of smoke, brightened by flames, was
billowing from the stables, and beginning to lick up the tower walls.

In that second’s distraction the commander saw his chance. He lunged, getting under the Borderer’s defence, and though Crozier scrambled out of his reach and deflected the
blade’s full force, it caught him across his chest, ripping through his tabard, and slicing into his breast. A shard of frozen heat seared him, and he staggered. He could hear a distant
rumble, whether of hooves or voices he could not tell. It grew louder, and more pressing, until he realised it was in his head, and he was close to fainting. The gathering clouds of smoke were no
thicker than his dimming sight. He fought on, willing himself to stay upright. ‘You made a big mistake just there, didn’t you, good sir,’ said the Englishman, sounding almost
regretful. ‘I am grateful for that, obviously, but it will be the last mistake you ever make.’

His love of talking was his undoing. He was grinning, trying to catch Crozier’s eye to drive home his advantage, when the Borderer’s sword found its way into his gullet. Their eyes
met at that moment, and the score was settled. Gasping, the commander toppled, clutching his throat. Before he drew his last breath his blood was running between the cobbles as if seeking to find a
way out of the yard.

Crozier stumbled to the wall, where he slumped. There was a hand under his arm, and Tom half dragged, half carried him into the keep. The door clanged behind him, and the gloom spun around his
head in a sparkle of pinpricks, then without warning turned black.