Late July 1348
Galloway, Scotland
We needed to move fast to reach Douglas with our news. We could see just well enough in the pewter light of daybreak that our mounts would not stumble on the rutted road, so Will and I kneed our mounts to a canter through dawn’s chill. A dozen men rode in our tail, and wisps of fog drifted through the trees from the nearby Lochar Water. My pulse thrummed in my ears in time to the rapid beat of our horses’ hooves.
We turned off the road and met the sentries placed well out from camp. I dropped my stirrups and slid to the ground, looking around for Douglas.
He was talking to Duncan Ramsay but, after a moment, strode to meet us. “What did you find?” he asked Will.
“The rumor is true. Maxwell is behind us with a convoy of sumpters less than half a day away.”
“You are certain it is him?”
I sniffed. “There is nae missing that black saltire on his banner. It is Maxwell, all right. And in a hurry too. He is driving the horses hard.”
“How many men? How many sumpters?”
“Two score men-at-arms,” Will replied. “Twenty or twenty-five sumpters.”
Douglas smirked. “I mean to have Caerlaverock, and what better way to weaken it? We’ll deny it supplies. And take Maxwell if we can.”
I pulled at my lip with my teeth, frowning. “My lord.” If I wanted him to listen to me, it helped to make sure to give him his title. “There is a passage through a thicket only a couple hours’ ride from the castle. I recall it from scouting. The road narrows and passes into a dense hawthorn thicket. A braw spot for an ambush.”
“Aye,” Duncan said. “I ken the place. And by that time, they should be weary and thinking of home and a good meal instead of watching for enemies.”
“Well done, Will.” Douglas turned and bellowed, “Break camp. And carry your bows! That means everyone. Now move!”
Fires were kicked out, and makeshift tents knocked down. Alan gave out the bows, and another man handed out stacks of bodkin arrows. I sat on the trunk of a fallen beech and ran my thumb along the edge of my blade. It was still as sharp as when I honed it yestereve, and I smiled at myself. Brushing away a cloud of midges, I looked up to admire a goshawk balancing on the wind and circling as it searched for prey. I tightened my swordbelt and settled the claymore to ensure it was loose in its scabbard. A horse boy brought me my garron, better than my courser through mud and bogs. It was done for now after our hard ride through the night anyway.
Colban nodded to me, leading up his mount.
“How did it go whilst we were gone?” I asked as I gathered my reins.
“Two more men joined.” He grinned. “Two poachers if I be any judge. But we cannae have enough Ettrick bowmen, so they be welcome. And his lordship bought more garrons.”
“Braw news.”
As we rode, the Douglas banner hung limp in the still summer air. The sun through the beech branches soon warmed the air, and my neck itched as sweat dripped from my hair.
The trees thinned and then stopped. A few patches of willows were reflected in standing pools. The path wound its way, but Douglas turned our course into the moors instead. He could not chance Sir John Maxwell realizing a force had passed before him. We sloshed doggedly through the waterlogged and peat-pocketed moor. The horses sloshed hock deep through sludge. Even the small garrons sank to their fetlocks.
Even my sure-footed garron stumbled in a peat hag, a pool of thick black sludge covered with green scum. I jerked sideways and saved myself from a fall, but a larger horse would have long since foundered.
I pointed. “The thicket is close by. We can join the road on the castleward side if we circle ahead.”
Douglas grunted and turned his horse’s head in that direction. We rode past the dark green thicket covered with glistening red berries to our left. Once past, horses heaving and straining up a slope, we regained the road.
Blackbirds feasting on the berries rose squeaked in alarm when we neared. I dismounted. The road was narrow, six feet across, with barely room for two riders abreast.
He pointed. “Gil, ride back. You can take the road. Hide in the trees and keep watch. Light a smoke fire after they pass you. Just enough that I can see the smoke mind.” When Gil tugged his forelock and turned his mount, the Douglas continued. “Colban, half on this side of the thicket and half on the other. Do not fire until I give my cry.” I turned his horse in a tight circle, making sure they all saw his face. “We need to cut the thicket low to have a good shot. And we dinnae have much time. So move.”
A couple of the men gathered the horses and led them along the road until they were out of sight.
Hawthorns have nasty, sharp, long thorns, so there were occasional yelps as someone was stabbed with one. I squelched through mud, hacking branches off with my dirk. With five score men, it did not take long so archers could see over the bushes when they stood. Now came the hard part—the waiting. It would not be long unless something had delayed him. But a caravan moved slower than men on horseback. Once Colban had the men in place in a row of two, one squatting and one standing so they could concentrate their fire, Will, Duncan, and I stood behind them. Symon knelt in the second row of archers with Angus of Longniddry. Colban and his cousin Alan waited next to the road.
Douglas walked back towards the way Maxwell would come, eyes narrowed as he watched for the signal.
The midday sky was clear and bright, the sun shining down from a cloud-scattered sky. One by one, I spoke to the men as they crouched in the cover of the green undergrowth. I walked slowly back to the far end of the thicket. If the English tried to circle to counter-attack the archers, this was where I would have to meet them. The green sludge past the road reflected the gold coin of the sun.
I paced behind them one more time, restless with the waiting. The air was so moist it was like breathing water, and I sweated like a hard-run horse. I shifted my claymore, making sure it ran smoothly in its sheath. I patted my dirk to see that it rode safely on my left hip. Was it possible ever to grow accustomed to the waiting? Mayhap spending days waiting to be beaten should be added to a squire’s training. I snorted. Sir William had been ready with the back of his hand or his boot, which had not helped my patience at all.
A wisp of smoke rose above the trees. Will caught my eye and nodded. Should I have brought my bow? But there were men here who were much better archers than I, while I was the best man with a sword.
“See that they hold their fire, Colban,” the Douglas said. “I want those supplies, so make sure to take down the men leading the sumpters.”
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves and squelched to the far end. A jay fluttered, scolding and screaming, and settled again.
A whinny came from around the bend, and there was a clang of harness. A horse clattered into sight, a courser, its pace a weary plod. Maxwell. Behind him, a man bearing his white banner with its black saltire. The men nocked their arrows.
Wait….
Wait….
Maxwell rode with a loose rein, a hand relaxed on his thigh. His shield hung on his back. A long line behind him of men in dark mail followed two by two as the road narrowed.
He reached the thicket. Paused. Looked from side to side and urged his mount forward.
Douglas held up a hand.
Sweat ran down my forehead and ribs. My claymore slid silently from the sheath.
The bannerman entered the thicket. Then another, all the men strung out riding double file. Sir John Maxwell was halfway to where I waited.
Douglas shouted, “Fire!”
Bows thunked as the men fired. Maxwell’s Bannerman grunted and tumbled from his horse. The banner lay in the dirt beside him.
“Ride!” Maxwell screamed. He hit his horse’s flank with the flat of his sword. “Head for the castle!” The animal gathered its haunches and lunged to a gallop. An arrow whistled past him. I glared in the direction Maxwell had ridden, onward out of the trap, and stepped on the black and white banner. I stopped, cursing. No chance of catching him.
Riderless horses neighed and reared. Riders kicked their horses ahead. They jammed into men flying the other way. Alan pulled another arrow back to his ear, aimed, and loosed it. The shaft pierced a chest, and the man screamed as he fell.
A man-at-arms kicked his horse in a circle. He jerked his reins to head towards the end of the passage and jammed spurs into its flanks. It floundered, splashing, in the muck. I ducked and cut one of its legs out from under it. The rider was good. He leapt free on his feet. I met him with a high guard and opened him from chest to gut.
“A Douglas!” I shouted again. “At them.”
Douglas was beside me, swords slashing as another man-at-arms waded into the fight. A sword took Alan, and he fell back, splashing and blood billowing in the water. I buried my blade in the middle of the first neck within reach. The men shouted, “A Douglas.”
The English were a tangle of horses facing every direction. In a chaos of screams, moans, and bellows, some tried to fight and died. The ones who could desperately kicked their horses to a gallop after Maxwell. A rider slipped off the road into the hock-deep black muck, horse thrashing. The man screamed when an arrow found his back. It turned into a route. The only enemies left were galloping away.
The sumpters, halters hanging loose, whinnied, pawed the ground, and tried to follow. I grabbed one by the halter, managing to turn it, blocking the rest inside the passage through the thicket. More of our men ran up, grabbing halters and trying to soothe the panicked animals.
The air stank of blood and shit and acrid peat. I found Alan dead. Another corpse lay in the muck, and I cursed again. I had forgotten the man’s name. Symon sat winding a rag around a slash in his leg, pale and bloody but alive.
An English man-at-arms groaned, his arm slashed open.
I squatted beside him. “Answer a question for me, and I shall let you go. Even bandage up that arm for you.”
“Now—” He groaned again. “—or I die before you asks your questions.”
“Gil, wrap that up.” I bent over the man again. “Now tell me why Maxwell rode like the devil was on his heels.”
“Worse than the devil.” He yelped when Gil tightened the bandage.
Douglas grunted, standing above me. “What do you mean? Worse?”
“A plague. Kills fast.” He was panting, whether from fear or pain I could not tell. “Boils and fever. Everyone who gets it dies. Screaming.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Started in the south. Now in London where Maxwell was. He ran. And we was glad to run with him.”
Gil stood. The arm was bandaged, but blood had already soaked through. He was going to die, but at least we knew what had scared Maxwell into flight.
“Were there nae boils in the plagues of Egypt?” I asked. “I remember the priest saying so.”
“Aye.” Will scratched his head. “Mayhap the Lord Jesu sent them a sickness to punish them for their wrongs against us.”
That autumn and winter, we spent raiding in Lothian though there were few convoys of goods to attack. I managed a visit to Joneta for Christmastide, taking the rear quarter of a hind I had shared with Will and Sir Duncan. But the icy snow made walks impossible, and her father kept his eye on me. The best I could manage was to steal a single kiss.
Our raids were not only in Lothian but ranged a short way south of the Tweed. The pickings were small. The English hid in their castles and homes, never venturing further than they absolutely must. Merchants and peddlers seemed to have disappeared from the roads. And the rumors were grim. A few prisoners told of having heard of countless dead in London, so many they could not even dig enough graves. So we gave thanks to God that we had been spared.