That night they made a rough camp in the defile of the Tibalt Burn, cooked oak bannocks over small campfires, and slept in their armor wrapped in their cloaks.
A rock dug into James's back. He pulled his cloak closer around him and rolled over with a grunt. In the darkness, someone snored and grunted, another hacked, and the footsteps of one of the sentries whispered through the grass. A warm night wind that carried a stink of fire rustled the branches. The moon, old and tarnished, hung high in the sky.
James rolled onto his other side and then gave up with a long breath that he kept from being a sigh. What good were sighs or groans? What was lost was lost. He got up, sure there was still some wine in the cask the King had liberated from Lanercost Abbey, Malmsey, red and fruity, meant for the abbot's table. A few more drinks might let him snatch an hour's rest before the early summer sunrise.
He poured himself a cup and settled cross-legged by the dying campfire, a red ember peering out. A sharp rap on the back of his head made him jerk. “Robbie,” he grunted.
“Did you leave any for me?”
“Check for yourself.” He shouldn't take his foul mood out on Boyd. God knew...
The tun of wine gurgled as Boyd emptied it into a wooden cup. “The King has the right of it. You're as sour as a fishwife lately.” Boyd folded himself into a slouch on the other side of the campfire, and the silence stretched out. An owl hooted from a tree. “You're not like yourself.”
“It's been...” James turned the crude cup in his hands. “It's been a hard year.”
“When has it not been a hard year since most of us can remember?” He took a drink and his eyes gleamed, looking feral in the moonlight. “What happened?”
James didn't want to talk about it. He most definitely did not want to say the terrible words, but Boyd sat waiting. Finally, James said, “Alycie...” To his horror, his voice broke. It felt as though a rock lodged in his throat, blocking his voice, his very breath. He gulped down some wine to wash the damned rock away. He forced his voice to be hard. “Alycie died. Whilst they were in hiding.”
“Sometimes, I'm not sure if I'm lucky to have never cared deeply or cursed,” Boyd said softly. “You seemed happy, and I envied you, seeing how you were the little that I saw you together. Laughing and all. Though...”
James looked up and considered how strange that the stars held their course, unchanged. They should have fallen like rain. When it hurt so much, just to look at them and be alone.
Sounding amused, Boyd said, “The King says I should marry. Too many of us haven't, and we must.” He snorted. “When has there been time, but Master David brought his goodniece back from France.”
A grim laugh came out, and James wasn't sure where it came from. “Yes. I know.”
“I suppose that he's right. With the English mostly out of the land, we need to build... something. But...”
“But you're damned if you know how, you mean?”
Boyd took a drink and seemed to think it over. “Something like that. When have we done anything but war since either of us was a lad? And Jesu knows, I'm older than you. An old man, near enough.”
“Not that old.” He thought about it. “How old are you, anyway?”
“I was nineteen when we lost the Battle of Dunbar. Fourteen years since we've been fighting this war. If that doesn't make me old, what would?”
“I was with my father at Berwick then. Before he sent me to France. I was ten.” James counted, a little surprised because it had been a long time since he'd thought of how old he was. “Twenty-two now, but I feel—older.”
Boyd snorted a laugh. “Do you? Well, with some luck, you may live to be old.” He leaned back on an elbow and saluted James with his cup. “Not that I'm so old I may not yet enjoy that wife Robert says I must have. I have a mind to ask for her hand. Caitrina. A nice name. She is...” His teeth gleamed as he grinned. “Oh, she is a fierce one.”
Boyd got up and took both their cups to refill. Already there was a rime of gray dawn at the edge of the sky. “No point in trying to sleep. Wonder if they'll make any fight of it at Hawtewysill.”
“Probably not. Well... if they got reinforcements from Thirlwall Castle, they might. But most of the forces from Thirlwall are with Edward of Caernarfon in Berwick, so...” He shrugged. “Probably not.”
Boyd grunted assent and fell silent. In the quiet camp, someone groaned in their sleep. A nightingale trilled and whistled. “Jamie...” Boyd said in a hesitant voice. “How did it happen?”
James swallowed so that his voice would hold firm. “The wonder is that more didn't die. Hiding in caves. The cold. Not enough food.” His voice wobbled, and he took a breath. “She sickened. Just... sickened.”
Boyd threw a stick into the dying embers of the fire. “Only two hours to the town. Do you know what he plans?”
James grasped the change in topic gladly. Talking about Alycie just was like peeling the scab from a wound nearly mortal. “Just that they'll be the devil to pay if we don't keep our men in check.”
“The King or the devil... I think I'd take the devil's bad side.”
A rumble of voice across the camp made James look up. Against the gray light of dawn, he saw the King. “He might send us there if we're careless.” He stood up, stretched his back and kicked dirt over the ash of the campfire. He picked up his sword belt and unsheathed the weapon, turned it in his hand. He tossed it from his right hand to his left and tried a cut. “Time to rouse the men.”
The men muttered curses and crude jokes as they mounted in the faint light. Wisps of fog drifted through the sweet morning air. The King called his commanders to his side as they rode in ranks, hooves drumming on the stone of the old Roman road as it twisted through the hills. A spire poked into view, and a church bell tolled the Angelus. The morning sun gleamed the roof, and the narrow burn was a silver ribbon.
“Look,” one of their outriders shouted.
A line of horses cleared the hill. “Fools,” James muttered. Those were no knights nor even men-at-arms, but they had helms and weapons in their hands. There were twenty or so, burghers most likely thinking they could defend their town.
“James, have your men take care of those,” the King said brusquely. “We'll secure the town.”
“Front three files to me,” James snapped out. He clapped his spurs to the horse's flanks. “A Douglas!”
The burgers sawed at their reins, mounts rearing and sidling. By the time James reached them, many had already thrown down their weapons and scrambled from their horses. “Yield,” James shouted. A big-shoulders man swung a falchion, and James rocked back. He ducked and hacked backhand and slashed to bone and gut. The man slid sideways, foot caught in his stirrup. The horse pounded away, leaving a glistening trail of crimson.
“We yield,” a gray-haired man was shouting. He raised empty hands over his head. “Please. We're not fighters.”
James gave the man a hard look. “Be sensible, and no harm will come to you.” He turned his skittering mount in a tight circle. “You men, gather the mounts, their weapons. Escort our guests back to town. Gelleys, with me.” He flicked his reins and cantered to catch up with the King's party.
Ahead he heard a din as he rode past a stone sheep pin. A cow lowed inside a wooden barn. The cobblestone street that wound up a grassy hill lined with stone houses with thatch roofs. At the summit stood the large church, which they'd seen from a distance.
Men and women were being rousted from their homes with some shouts of the men-at-arms. A bairn wailed at the top of its lungs as its mother whirled to scream at the man who shoved her into the street. One of the men was thrown struggling onto the cobblestones. When he pulled a knife from his belt, Philp kicked the weapon from his hand and skewered him with a hard thrust to the gut. He jerked his sword free. The man scrambled crab-wise back, blood leaking down. A woman screamed, “Murderers!” and pulled at his arm as he crumpled.
“James, you see to things here and keep tight control,” the King said. He motioned to his men to follow as he turned his mount. “That church belongs to the See of Aberdeen and owes their tithes.”
“Hear you,” James shouted. “Anyone who raises a hand against us will die.”
The defeated burghers were beginning to straggle into sight.
“Gather those people together outwith the town,” James said to Wat. He raised his voice to be heard over the murmur of voices and weeping of the knot of townspeople. “Search the houses. Make sure none are hiding. And make a good job of searching for valuables.”
An ululating scream so high and piercing it cut the air and raised the hair on the back of James's neck. He pointed to the open door of the house. There was another long scream that must have ripped someone's throat.
“If that's what I think...” James threw himself from his saddle and sprinted through the open door. Within, a low fire burned on an open hearth, and a wooden table was overturned, a chair tossed aside. James saw only the man's back as he humped, and white legs spread beneath him. There was a broken whimper. James pulled his sword, reversed it and hammered down with the hilt on the man's dark head. The rapist flattened with a grunt.
“God damn me,” Wat said behind him. “The King will have our heads on a pike.”
James gave the fallen man a vicious kick in the side to roll him over and expelled a long breath of relief to see that it wasn't one of his. “Drag him outside.”
He looked down at the woman who had curled herself into a ball on the floor, shoulders heaving. He rubbed a hand over his face. He'd send one of the townswomen to bring her out, but there was business to take care of first.
Wat grabbed the miscreant's feet and backed his way out. The man's head thudded hard on the doorstep, and blood dribbled from where the blow had split his scalp open. James sheathed his sword, shook his head, sighed again and followed. He climbed into the saddle feeling unreasonably weary. This was somehow much less satisfying than it should have been.
Wat had already tied the man's hands behind his back, though he still lay limp and slack. James nodded brusquely, and their gazes locked for a grim moment. “Bring a rope.” He looked around for a good spot for the job. There were trees between the houses, oaks mostly with branches too low to the ground. He turned his horse and beside the largest of the houses, one with three stories that must belong to a wealthy burgher, he spotted a tall pine, thick and hoary, the lowest branch higher than a man could reach sitting astride. “There.”
The man groaned and shook his head. Gelleys and Wat pulled him to his feet. He jerked, looked around eyes rolling, showing the whites. “It was play! Just a little play... our right. We took the town.”
Philp ran up with a chair and rope. At James's nod, the other man uncoiled the rope and threw it over the lowest branch of the pine. A sparrow flew out with a flash of black and white wings, scolding with an angry cree cree cree. The rope's end was knotted around the tree. The man began to toss and lunge. He was dragged as he kicked and tried to dig his feet into the stones. Under the dangling rope, Wat jerked the man around to face James, where he sat in icy silence.
James let the moment run out as a breathless silence fell over the town. “You disobeyed the commands of your lawful lords and commanders. You broke the law of God and of Scotland. In the name of Lord Robert, King of Scots, I sentence you to death.”
The man's mouth worked as wordless croaks came out. He was hoisted onto the chair. “Mercy,” he pleaded.
Philp jerked the chair free. The man swung once. Wat grabbed his body and pulled, lifting his own legs to give his full weight.
It was done.
James backed his horse up a step and wheeled to face his men. He looked from one to another, pale faces, open-mouthed. “The next man who commits rape will have the lash before he is hanged. Now search the houses. Seize any money, jewels or plate. Wat, find a woman to care for that lass, and get her with the others. Then fire the town.”