An Honourable Estate (7 page)

William nodded, but he couldn’t quite match Adam’s
enthusiasm.  He had lost some good men at Bannockburn, and the death of
young Bryan Palmer still grieved him as much as if the boy had been his own
son.

On Tuesday the fourth of November they marched downriver for
Preston with their banners flying in the strengthening breeze.  For once
it was fine and Adam laughed that if it had still been raining the earl’s men
would never have turned out to fight at all.

Around noon they caught sight of their enemy on flat land
near the riverbank.  William surmised that they numbered far fewer than
the rebels and settled onto his saddle with confident determination that,
despite his earlier misgivings, this was a battle they could win easily by
sheer force of superior numbers.

“Whose colours are they?” he asked Adam, as he squinted
against the low noonday sun.

“Huddleston, Richard de Waleys, Walter le Vavasour,” he
replied as he scanned the gathered force before them.  “We can take them
easily.  Bring up the archers but tell them not to fire until I give the
signal.  We cannot afford to waste arrows by firing on them before they
are within range.  Tell your men to do the same, make sure that they wait
for the signal.”

William nodded.  He knew that battles had been lost by
archers too anxious to wait, who thought that it was safer to fire their arrows
at the enemy as soon as they saw them.  He knew that it was
dangerous.  The arrows that fell short were easy pickings for an enemy
army to return fire.

They advanced slowly.  William’s horse snickered and
tossed its head and he leaned to stroke its chestnut neck to soothe it as he
kept it moving forwards.  In front of him his archers kept a steady pace
and a tight hold on their notched and primed arrows and behind him the men who
were mounted rode to the beat of the drums, their lances grasped ready.

Sun glinted on metal armour and the weapons of their
enemy.  Adam raised his arm and on his signal a volley of arrows took to
the air and William’s horse recoiled at the sudden noise as they flew towards
the advancing men.  Gripping his sword tightly he waved the horsemen
on.  As the wind rushed at his eyes through the gap in his visor and his
ears filled with the clash of metal and the shouts and screams of men fighting
for their lives, he plunged the blade into a man wearing Walter le Vavasour’s
colours and watched as he slid slowly from his horse, blood seeping through the
hole in his hauberk.  William turned and ducked as a lance narrowly missed
unseating him and reined his horse around to come up behind the man and plunge
his sword again, seeking the unprotected gap under his armpit as he raised his
arm to return the blow.

Sweat poured from his body and was soaked up by the thickly
padded gambeson under his armour, but the sweat that poured down his face in
rivulets made it difficult for him to see and it was the gradual silence that
alerted him to their swift success.  He peered around him and saw only his
own men and, as he cautiously put the visor up and removed a glove to wipe his
eyes, he saw what was left of the opposing force running northwards towards the
river. 

“Shall we give chase, sire?” asked Harry Palmer.

William looked at the man.  His face was gashed but he
seemed unaware of the blood that ran down his cheek and dripped from his chin.

“Let them go,” he said.  “They have learnt their
lesson.”

Adam Banastre led his forces into Preston and William watched
as the townspeople shrank into their doorways as they passed.  There were
no cheers, only fear on their faces as the army congregated in the market
square, tired and hungry and thirsty.

“We need provisions,” said Adam.  “Organise men to go
house to house and take whatever is necessary to feed the men and horses. 

Within the hour the men were settled.  The horses were
unsaddled and watered and a sheep was roasting over a fire.  Bread had
been distributed and the men had drunk well from the ale that had been taken
from the local brew house.  Those who had been injured were having their
wounds dressed and William was well pleased with what he saw.  He had
doubted Adam’s ability to lead this rebellion, but as he raised a cup of ale
and drank again he began to think that they could indeed succeed.

The shouts of the messengers who rode in from the lookouts
they had posted around the town walls didn’t concern him until he saw Adam
reach for his sword and his helm and order his horse re-saddled.

“What news?” he asked when he had walked quickly across the
square towards his friend.  Adam’s face told him that it was not good.

“Another force, larger, rides from the north,” he said. 
“We must get the men harnessed and ready to fight again or they will simply
sweep into the town and take us as we are.”

William glanced around at their army, at the men laughing and
joking, slapping one another on their backs and arms as they raised their cups
in celebration.  He looked at the tired horses, their noses to the ground
and at those that were too injured to fight again.  He knew that it would
not be easy to dispel another force, especially if those men were fresh and
eager to fight.

“How many?” he asked the white-faced messenger.

“Over three hundred I reckon, my lord.”

“Come, do not look so glum, Will!  We have had one
victory this day, why not another?”

William glanced at his friend, and Adam’s eyes gave a lie to
his optimistic words, yet he knew that they could not just sit around and wait
for slaughter.  He touched his hand to Adam’s arm.  “God be with
you,” he said before searching the crowd for Harry Palmer to tell him to
instruct the men to put down their ale and strap on their harness once more.

The enemy force looked intimidating as they advanced and far
outnumbered those rebels who were still able or even willing to fight. 
William was convinced that many of their own army had mysteriously disappeared
at the news of another battle, perhaps into the houses or barns of the
townspeople.  He had sent trusted men to search the taverns for deserters
but they had returned with only a few, mostly too drunk to be of value.

His aching eyes took in the red diagonal cross on the banner
of Sir Edmund Neville, the county sheriff.

“The Harringtons, and Sir William Dacre,” said Adam, riding
up beside him.

“We cannot win against them,” said William.

“What else can we do but try?” asked Adam.  “Numbers are
not everything.”

“No, but they help,” sighed William as he looked around at an
archer unsteadily trying to fix an arrow to his bow and prayed that they would
not be massacred.

The drink had made the men aggressive.  They were keen
to fight and not one hung back on the order to advance, but they lacked the
discipline of their earlier, more sober, assault and as soon as one let an
arrow fly the others followed despite the frantic commands to wait until the
enemy were within range.

As William let the riders with lances gallop forwards he saw
that they were being approached by another force from the east.  Men streamed
down the hill towards them and he vaguely recognised the banner of Sir Walter
de Strickland as he shouted orders to the men to regroup so that they could
defend their flank.  But his voice was lost amidst the screams of the
dying as the rebel army was cut down like a field of corn at harvest. 
William turned his horse as he felt panic rise from the pit of his
stomach.  He knew he owed it to the men who had supported him to stay with
them, but his every instinct was urging him to run for his life, to get away
from the oncoming blades that would mean sure death. 

“Sir William!”  The voice of Harry Palmer jolted him out
of his rising terror.  “The men are fleeing.  I think we should
withdraw.” 

William needed no more urging as he saw his men abandoning
their weapons and their restrictive helms and tunics of chainmail. 
Riderless horses were milling around the muddied and blood soaked field
whinnying in distress and his own horse, sensing their fear, unexpectedly
reared on its hind legs and William felt himself slide backwards.  Despite
clutching for the animal’s mane and for his saddle, he heard rather than saw
the ground rush up and he hit the mud with a force that momentarily knocked the
breath from him.  Struggling to his feet, he felt an arm pulling insistently
at his and he offered no resistance as Harry Palmer half led and half supported
him towards the fringe of trees at the south of the meadow.

Chapter Four

The Sheriff of Lancaster

It was
still dark when the noise made Mabel jump from her sleep.  She sat up in
bed, the covers clutched to her and her heart pounding fiercely as she listened
again, unsure if something real had woken her, or if it had been another
nightmare.  She had had so many bad dreams since William had gone, dreams
of him being hurt, dead, suffering somewhere out there alone in the dark,
unable to reach her except through the mysteries of the night-time.  But
then, she realised that Calab was barking and growling in the hall and she
heard Bella move in her bed.  The child’s sharp breathing told her that
she was also awake and that whatever had disturbed them was real enough. 
Then it came again.  The pounding on the manor house door. 

Mabel got up fearfully and pulled a tunic over her head,
pausing to cover her long hair as she wondered who was there.  Her first
thought had been that it was William come home to her, but she doubted that he
would have created such a din, unless he had been knocking for a long time and
she had been lost in too deep a sleep to have heard him.  But she doubted
it.  She never slept well these days and whenever he was away she seemed
to wake often in the night, sometimes getting up to check her daughters were
safe, or taking a candle to reassure herself that the doors were locked, the
windows shuttered, the fire covered.

Now she crept barefoot into the hall knowing her way
instinctively without the need for a candle.  She heard the anxious
breathing of the kitchen boys and Edith as they cowered on their pallets and
Mabel wished that not all the able bodied men had followed William so
eagerly.  The cold of the floor stung at her feet through the rushes and
when Calab ran to her she laid a hand on his soft head and shushed him. 
When he obeyed she was able to hear muffled barking from the other dogs
somewhere outside.  She stopped a few paces from the door and stood in the
blackness and listened.  Outside she could hear horses and men, several
men she thought as she listened to the exchange of voices.  It couldn’t be
William.  If it had been, she was sure he would have come alone and that
Calab would have been wagging his tail rather than making the menacing low
growl in his throat that he saved for strangers he distrusted.

Mabel jerked again in alarm as the pounding
recommenced.  Whoever was there was not going to go away she realised and
with shaking hands she fumbled for a candle and flints, taking several strikes
to light the wick.  With the reassurance of the big dog pressing against her
legs she cautiously lifted the beam that secured the outer door and, with the
candle held high, pulled it back a fraction, afraid of whom she would see
there.

“Ah!” said a voice.  “At last.  My apologies for
disturbing you Lady Bradshaigh.” 

Mabel raised the flickering flame even higher to illuminate
the face of the tall man who stood at her door.  His hair was long and
dark and framed a thin face with an overlarge nose and pale inquiring eyes that
were fixed on her with interest.  Instinctively she pulled the unpinned
neckline of her gown together, allowing the door to swing open.  And, as
she watched him look her up and down, she wished she had put on her cloak as
she feared that the gown was clinging to her shivering, naked body and
revealing more than she wanted him to see.

“Who are you?  What do you want?” she asked, grasping
for an authoritative tone but finding that the words came out as a frightened
squeak.

“My name is Sir Edmund Neville.  I am sheriff to the
Earl of Lancaster.  I seek your husband, Lady Bradshaigh.”

In the circumstances she was surprised that his voice sounded
so gentle, his tone so conciliatory, but as she glanced outside she saw, in the
early morning light, that he had men-at-arms all around both the manor house
and the barn.

“My husband is not here.”

“Mama?”  Bella’s frightened voice made her turn in
alarm.

“Go back to your bed and stay there!” she told her
daughter.  “There is nothing to trouble you here.” She saw her daughter
look at the man who was now filling their doorway and she saw the raw fear on
her face.  “Go back to the bedchamber and look after your sister. 
Close the door behind you.”

With relief she watched as Bella obeyed and she heard the
latch click shut.  She turned back to Sir Edmund Neville and held the
candle up again.

“My husband is not here,” she repeated.

“Then you can have no objection to us searching to be sure?”

“This is my house...” she began as she held out a hand to bar
his way.  He paused and looked down at her.