King Hereafter (119 page)

By then, very likely, there would be nothing much of an organised army left on either side, and both sides would be exhausted. He would expect no man, having come through that, to set out to march thirty odd miles to the Tay, this side of nightfall. Equally, he was safe from any remnant of Siward’s army on foot.

He had thought that perhaps Osbern or some of his friends still on horseback might have got through, provided the fighting was over. That none of them had could be a bad sign or a good.

Meantime, all that mattered were the fifteen hundred marching men who, however tired they might be, would still be able to save them. He said, ‘Your couriers didn’t come back. Send two more. Send two of the Forteviot men: they’ll ride faster.’

He saw from the look that crossed Tuathal’s face that he was understood, even before he himself tossed someone his reins and, dismounting, walked down through the men, rallying them; stopping to talk to the wounded; lifting from the food-baskets some bread and a piece of mutton in passing. The look that recognised, no matter what their hard fighting and their successes so far, that all the future hinged on the army they were now waiting for. And that if that army did not come, the invaders would very likely prevail.

Half an hour passed. He remembered it afterwards as the oddest part of the day. In the heat of the afternoon, both armies lay quiet, somnolent after the long hours of nervous exertion and the effects of the warmth and the food. Thorfinn sent Tuathal to sleep for ten minutes and, when he returned, dropped in his place on the bare earth of an old wattle barn, asleep before he stopped moving.

Seven miles off behind him, Eochaid and Ferteth and Cormac were fighting to save Perth and Scone from the army besieging them; and here, motionless under the sun, were a hundred men who could help them. Except that if they moved away, there would be nothing to hinder the army couched over the river from crossing and flinging their full weight against Scone before his own men from the south could arrive.

One made one’s decisions and stood by them. And when there was a chance to rest, one did not waste it.

Tuathal wakened him just after four. ‘The other side seem to be stirring. Ours are standing to arms.’

No courier had come from the south. However fast the army was marching, the Forteviot men would take an hour to reach them, and another hour to come back. Unless, of course, they met an incoming messenger on their way.

Patience.

He talked to Tuathal and then to the toisechs as he put on his mail shirt again and took up his helmet. The golden fillet and the richness of his dress and his harness were all he carried that would identify him, for his banner was on the Forth and his pennant had long since gone. But, with his height, it was enough. When he appeared, riding, and the sun flashed on the gold, his own men turned as they stood with their spears and called to him, ‘
Albanaid!
’

He raised his sword and answered them with the same word. It did not, now, bear the stamp of Duncan on it. Nothing did.

The men across the river marshalled themselves into lines and raised their banners.

‘Cathail macDubhacon, fighting in Siward’s hired army. May he go to hell with his pains, as he deserves,’ said Prior Tuathal.

Thorfinn looked at the banner. ‘Osbern had a favourite saying.
La laiterie ouverte rend les cats friaunds
. Alba, I agree, is not a dairy. But still, I should prefer Cathail and his friends captured, not killed.’

‘You expect too much,’ said Tuathal.

‘I used the word
prefer
, not
expect
,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Why do you suppose they are moving like that? To try the next ford upriver?’

‘There’s no advantage in that,’ Tuathal said. ‘Our horse would get there before they do.’

Thorfinn said, ‘They’re not dividing their forces, either. But they might. Why don’t we send half our force forward, parallel to theirs? We can soon send on the rest if we have to.’

The men, revived by their rest, were excited and restive. Leaving a toisech in charge, Thorfinn rode on with Tuathal and the advance group. After a moment, he said, ‘They’re striking away from the river, and south. It’s Forteviot.’

‘Can you be sure?’ Tuathal said. He had put a sleeveless tunic over his shirt of mail, and the Brecbennoch clung to it, undisturbed by the pace of his horse.

‘I can’t be sure,’ Thorfinn said. ‘That’s why they’re doing it. If we gallop on and pack ourselves into Forteviot, they simply turn and race for Scone, crossing the river unhindered. If they turn all their power on Forteviot, we either have to do nothing or cross the river ourselves and give battle. We should not only lose, against eight times our numbers, but we might well tempt the Forteviot garrison to come out and rescue us, and the fort would be taken.’

Tuathal said, ‘If Bishop Jon’s army is near, this little force will walk straight into its arms. It can’t be far off. It can’t be far off.’

‘Whistle up your other half, then,’ Thorfinn said. ‘All we can do is keep pace on this side until we see what will happen. By Forteviot, we can cross the Earn anywhere, if we have to. If Bishop Jon and his stout men arrive, as you say, we shan’t have to.’

The other army, obscured now by scrub and by trees, continued to move gently south, nor, said the scouts, was there any diminishing of its numbers. Tuathal said, ‘They’re taking their time, aren’t they?’ and broke off.

‘They were,’ Thorfinn said. ‘That was an order by trumpet, repeated twice. And that, my lord Prior, is a jog-trot. They’re in a hurry now, all right. And they’re still making south. So they haven’t heard of Bishop Jon and his army. So if they run fast enough, they’ll run into its jaws, and Bishop Jon can say a prayer over Cathail. Let’s keep up with them.’

Behind him, the horses moved to a trot, and he could feel the wariness giving way to disbelief, and the disbelief to the first stirrings of a dazed expectancy.

Everyone knew they were riding towards Bishop Jon’s army. And so was the enemy. Above the rustle and thud of the hooves, he could hear the voices of Tuathal’s riders behind him calling to one another, quipping breathlessly, their voices still surprised. Without anything said, Tuathal turned in the saddle and held up a flat palm for silence.

Silence was not in fact necessary. But open jubilation or even jeering might be unwise. Perhaps this was merely a ruse to trick them into a crossing at Forteviot.

Perhaps it was not. In which case, the less the other army suspected, the better.

It seemed a wise edict, if a bit over-cautious. The band of riders obeyed it sufficiently. Battle-excitement was something no one would expect to extinguish. When, far in the distance, a familiar rider was seen approaching on their side of the river, and then behind him another, the wise edict found itself swept aside, and the men behind Thorfinn gave a snatched cheer, and then went on cheering.

The riders were the Forteviot men. The men sent south an hour ago to bring back news of Bishop Jon’s army.

Tuathal said, ‘It’s too soon. They must have got news at Forteviot.’

And then, ‘They’re … O Mary, Mother of Christ. Keep them off.’

‘Not now,’ said Thorfinn.

It was too late. Whatever news the couriers had to tell, the men behind would have to hear it. They had stopped cheering and calling already and, instead of speeding, the sound of their hoof-beats had slackened.

The galloping men in the distance came closer.

White faces: cracked voices shouting. These were not the outriders of a large and powerful army sweeping to join them: an army visible, if they rode hard, in half an hour.

These were men unmarked by battle who screamed indistinguishable news as they rode, so that over the river and through the trees you could glimpse the turning masks of grinning enemy faces, while on this side of the river the King put up his hand and Tuathal and his men came to a halt.

Silence fell. The horses pawed, shaking their manes and switching tails, and harness jangled. Faced with that band of silent men, the two riders’ headlong rush veered and slowed, and one of them dropped to a loiter. Everyone saw him slide suddenly from his horse and bend, retching and whistling, into the grass.

The other rider rode up and stopped.

The other rider said in a whisper, ‘Save yourselves.’ His eyes were fixed on Thorfinn.

Thorfinn said steadily, ‘We will. Tell us what you know. Bishop Jon’s army?’

‘Cut to pieces. The Normans, too, that escaped Siward and joined them. Forteviot’s burning. Do you see the smoke now? They do, over the water. They’re going to strip the bodies and finish the killing.…

‘It was the surprise, you see,’ said the Forteviot man. ‘Not the numbers, although there were enough of them. They were waiting at Ruthven Water. By St Cathán’s church and the monks’ houses. Bishop Jon and my lord of Riveire and the rest came marching up, suspecting nothing. My lords, save yourselves, there is nothing any man can do there.’

‘Who was waiting at St Cathán’s?’ said Thorfinn. He put all the skills he had ever learned into the timbre of his voice.

The man drew a long breath and spoke clearly.

‘A great army of men, my lord King, splendidly equipped with many banners, and two of them gilded. One was the flag of Thor of Allerdale. The other was the royal standard, they say, flown by my lord Malcolm, King Duncan’s eldest son.’

He choked, and his chest leaped. ‘My lord, the kingdom is lost.’

Thorfinn said, ‘Fife is not Alba. Scone is Alba, which can be rescued. Dunkeld is Alba, which is still safe.’

‘My lord!’ said the Forteviot man. ‘Dunkeld fell early this morning. Allerdale’s army came from there. And a thousand men stayed, they were boasting, to level the church and the hall and the monastery and then leave to do the same to Scone and to Perth.

‘My lord King, there is nowhere to go. Alba has fallen.’

unkeld fell early this morning
.

To weep would solve nothing, or to fall into panic, or to obey the heave of the belly, the sudden gripe of the bowel, that came not only to messengers.

But above belly and bowel was a controlling head, and a tongue that could ask the other, necessary questions. Then Thorfinn turned to the swarm of stamping horses about him, and their sallow-faced riders.

‘Any survivors of the battle at Ruthven Water would do best to lose themselves among the hills until I can call them again. You may wish to do the same. I don’t know how far the south-west has risen for Allerdale, or Angus for Kineth, but Moray is safe, and the coast down to Salorch and further. There should be ships of mine waiting there, watching the English off Monifieth. If any of you reach them, have them wait. There will be other refugees like yourself. And if you reach Moray, by sea or by land, go to my stepson Lulach. He will tell you what to do.’

‘And you, my lord?’ said Tuathal. His marled face had not changed at all. Only the skin round his eyes was wet, as if from a cold wind.

Thorfinn said, ‘I am going to Scone. You heard the report. The army at Dunkeld split in two. Half left early to come here. But the rest stayed to destroy and to plunder, and did not plan to march downriver till later. If they did not leave till three hours after noon, or even two, they won’t have reached Scone as yet, or Perth.

‘I am going to warn them. There are three hundred horsemen of ours there already, with Strathearn and Atholl. We’ll put a gate of armed men across the Tay north of Scone and give them the kind of welcome we gave to the shipmen. Then we shall join Prior Eochaid in Scone. It is our sacred place, our shrine: the casket that holds the heart of this kingdom. I will not leave it. And besides, if Bishop Jon and our Norman friends know their business, it can stand a siege longer, perhaps, than Allerdale or King Duncan’s son are prepared to give it. Does anyone want to come with me?’

Death and life are in the power of the tongue
.

They followed him, every one, barring the man he forced to ride for the Tay to cross and reach the coast and his ships.

He did not close his eyes this time, thundering back north the seven miles he had come, with a hundred men more than twenty.

So boldly one spoke. The Normans were the best fortress-builders he knew, but Forteviot had fallen; Dunkeld had fallen. But Thor of Cumbria had not learned the lesson of the Hereford marches, and of Normandy. A strong fortress changing hands can pin down a region on behalf of its conquerors. A fortress destroyed is no use to them.

Malcolm must have been in Dunkeld, where his young brother was. That would, of course, be why Dunkeld had fallen. A mediocre nineteen-year-old, content to hunt and fish and tend his herb-garden: how could he resist the dashing older brother whom he had not seen for twelve years, with his sword and his banner and his Saxon jewels and accent?

My herb-garden is already cared for. I keep you for sweetness’ sake only
.

She had gone to Dunkeld because, as his friend, she had thought to keep Maelmuire strong.

And he had allowed her because, as at Tarbatness, her forfeit in any war was different from his.