Games of Otterburn 1388 (49 page)

Figuring that if they followed the fleeing Scottish servants their men would soon follow them, they set spurs to their mounts and trotted after the fearful lads who had little choice but to run.

As the forty men-at-arms sent by John Dunbar arrived to bolster Swinton’s fighters the scattering of the younger boys had already begun as the dusk light was dwindling fast. The forty joined the fight taking their long spears and knocking the English warriors out of their saddles.

They stabbed and beat them as they fell to the ground hard and in a state of disorientation.

“What about the main battle?” asked Ogle only guessing at Redman’s true
intentions.

“Be a while ere he’ll need a second side attack the way I figure,” said Redman and laughed so the Ogle realized his suspicions were becoming a reality and Redman was ready to let Hotspur hang or win as the whim of fate momentarily desired.

Redman liked the retrieval of the cattle for the
England
landowners but certainly not for Hotspur who belittled him before his close men and he secretly swore revenge when they both stood on the wall of
Newcastle
where Sir James Douglas was winning at every turn against Hotspur.
 

More of Redman’s men followed as did Ogle’s and in the early twilight moments they began poking the bushes with their swords expecting a Scottish lad to hop up like a hare and run for his life.

The English were not disappointed and thought it good sport to slash them down from horseback as they ran as fast as they could. It was not dark enough to hide well since most were dressed in light colored shirts and not light enough for any of the regular warriors to see their plight and organize a rescue. They were very much on their own and sadly enough they knew it.

Adara squatted into a large bush as she heard the screaming of the freshly slashed and the follow-up laughter of an English mounted man-at-arms who had managed to kill his escaping quarry.

She made herself into as small a ball as she could devise and pushed as deep into the bush as she dared while keeping her fist tight to the handle of her short sword.

Her hatred for English men flared while her fear of them tempered her anger. She sat quiet listening to the horror all around her position.

Suddenly she heard a close by man say, “Got one here!”

Her nerves shattered her backbone at first. Her eyes rolled upward to see if the man had really spotted her. He had and was getting from his horse to further investigate his find in the wan light.

Adara sat still griping her weapon all the tighter.

The English pulled back the brush to look straight at her.

She made no move but kept her fearful eyes glued on his.

“‘Tis a girl!” he shouted to a close cohort.

“Woman?” questioned the cohort.

“‘Tis,” he replied, “Come see, I tell you!”

Adara still did not move. The man did not see her sword she had covered with her dress. She pretended to cry.

The Englishman laughed as he, without fear, reached under the bush to physically draw her out to take what he figured was his right and she was determined not to give.

He laughed right up until the very instant he felt the sting in his gut just below his chest armor. He had the face of surprise. His mind reeled to know the reason for his faintness as Adara looking into his searching eyes twisted the blade and pushed it deeper. He tried to call out a warning to his friend but his breath was indeed taken.

She withdrew the blade and moved away from her spot as the big man began toppling toward her in his death faint. She could hear the hoof sounds of his friend coming closer and she stood to face her second Englishman wanting to take her.

The man came to the bush and saw the dead man with Adara standing close hiding her bloody sword in the pleats of her skirt.

“What happened to him?” he asked narrowing his accusing eyes.

“Don’t know, Milord,” she said pretending to weep again, “Arrow-shot, reckons me.”

The cohort got from his horse to see better in the grayed light.

Adara held her place.

The man bent over to get a better view. “Don’t see an arrow,” he said as Adara rammed her sword through his lower gut as well.

He
raised
up screaming to the top of his voice and her sword hit him across the nose gushing blood.
 

She then took to her heels wishing for complete darkness but that was not to come as the nearly full moon on the clear summer’s night came up from the eastern horizon to equally replace that which was fading in the west.

“Who’s that
a’comin
’?” asked William Lindsay manning the northern barricade.

“Too dark to tell!” answered his brother David.

Earl George stood tall and shouted to the rider, “Halt!!”

The man immediately pulled his reins back bringing his horse to a sudden stop.

“Must be one of our spies,” opined William.

George walked out to meet the man.

“Moray’s man, Milord,” he said when George got close.

“Where’d he send ye?” asked George.

“
Was
a’watchin
’ the valley north,” said the scout.

“And what?” asked George.

“They’re
a’comin
’,” said the scout, “and they ain’t far behind me, neither.”

“How many?”

“No
tellin
’ Milord,” he replied.

“Get behind the barricade and help us fight here,” ordered George then walking further away from the camp to get a first look as his attackers. He soon realized that for the lack of light he could not possibly know more and returned to his men saying to William Lindsay, “Fix to have
a’plenty
on us!”

William smiled. “Reckon we stirred up bad shit, Milord,” he said tending toward sarcasm.

George understood his meaning, smiled slightly. “
Stinkin
’ like it,” he replied then ordered Lindsay to get his spearmen close to the barricade with the archers back to be the first to counter attack when the riders came over the rise of the hill.

“How many volleys, Milord?” asked William.

“‘
Til
they’re out of arrows,” came back George.
“Knights and men-at-arms lastly.”

“Aye, Milord,” returned William setting off to organize his men according to the earl’s order.

George could hear the battles raging to his left and downhill. He could not help but wonder how his friends were faring against the English. He hoped he could have a quick victory on his side of the field so his nearly seven hundred men could be applied to the other arenas of the overall battle. It was a prayer made in a hollow reality and deep in his heart he knew it.

He turned back to his immediate task as the men were organizing according to his plan. He put John’s spy out beyond the awaiting battle to blow his horn in a certain way to warn them of the impending attack he knew would play out on the ground before them.

Hotspur was in the front of his battle wedge and moving forward with each step having to give back only one for every three that drove the Scots tighter to the wattle of their own making.

There were plenty of dead men underfoot for the English to have to wade through and step over. The ground was becoming slick in spots by the spilled blood of those most ambitious to be recognized by their superiors. Then there were those who were just simply less talented at war.

The youthful squire Thomas Waltham was one of those who had much talent, strength and endurance to take advantage of others with whom he was fighting. He stood beside his liege lord matching him stroke for stroke against the Scottish heads.

The English had worked their way through the thin ranks of the spearmen and were then fighting the stronger and better fitted men-at-arms mixed in with John Dunbar and various Scottish knights. Their encumbrances on three sides by the English hemmed them to a small bit of ground from which they had no good retreat.

The men of Sir James Douglas were gathered at the top of the low ridge on the east side of Blakeman’s Law. He had the strongest knights and men-at-arms in his contingent. The trees alone were sufficient cover to allow the success of the flanking ruse but the lack of light certainly added as well.

Douglas
led his men down the easy north side of the ridge and along the bottom toward the ongoing skirmish led by John Dunbar.

From her newly acquired hiding bush Adara saw a gathered lot of Redman’s men who were on the inside edge of the wood watching Earl George organizing his men for the expected attack from the northern side by Umfraville. He had no idea there were renegade Redman troops plotting to hit him from the west.

Thomas Waltham broke clear of encumbering men-at-arms and headed deep into the ranks of the Scots. He recognized the arms on John Dunbar’s surcoat from
Newcastle
and fought the Scots heading directly for the earl with the desire of beating the man into surrender and taking him as a ransom prisoner.

John was fighting an English knight when
Waltham
’s intruding sword flashed in front of the two men and
Waltham
gave the English fighter a shout which was enough to let him know to pick another with whom to war.

John had not retrieved his helm
nor
any other. He flew into the impertinent youth with the fury of a long-spurred cock. Their swords clanged hard against one another as the more experienced
Dunbar
pushed him back away from where the English stood strong.

“You baseborn bastard!” yelped
Waltham
when he realized how
Dunbar
was manipulating him.

John smiled a bit and backed him deeper through the crowd of Scottish warriors with Thomas Waltham exchanging clanging sword strokes on bucklers with him all the way until they were fighting close to the wattle barrier. It was there that John decided to excel and with a series of quick strokes he had knocked the sword from
Waltham
’s hand and had him on the ground with his gauntlet in the air as his sign of surrender.

“Hope yer Hotspur is as easy to win over,” said John without a bit of humor.

Thomas Waltham dropped his hand knowing he had been beaten. “My Hotspur will pay for me, I’m sure,” he said weakly.

There were Scottish spearmen on the far side of the wattle as John pulled him to his feet declaring, “Ye are my ransom prisoner. Swear ye’ll not run off or I’ll run
ye
through dead… right now!”

Waltham
was not only beaten but also exhausted. He had spent his hate energy on his initial attacks and then nothing... so it was without prideful clarity for him to utter the words, “I swear.”

John leaned him over the low retainer fence and two spearmen pulled him the rest of the way then walked him to where the growing group of hunkered English prisoners taken on the various raids knew little of what was going on around them in the relative darkness.