King Hereafter (114 page)

In battle, too, Eochaid would stand with the Bishops and the King in the van. For, as Prior of Scone and its guardian, he bore round his neck the Brecbennoch, the little silver reliquary casket of St Columba which was all the Celtic church could bring to any battle while its Abbots of Iona and Armagh and Kells disputed with one another in the turmoil of Irish battle, Irish famine, Irish plague, demanding the grace of St Columba and first claim to the aid of his relics.

Eochaid said, ‘It is good news from Fife. Earl Siward’s ships were sighted south of the estuary two hours ago. Six only, and two of them small. The eight ships you left waiting had already moved across to intercept them.’

‘Siward’s fleet has the wind,’ Thorfinn said. ‘But one of my ships has Killer-Bardi in it. And even if my eight have sunk to the bottom, it is too late for anyone to interfere with this battle now. Although, as you see, Siward is not anxious to fight. Should we tell him the news, do you think?’

Eochaid smiled. The early sun, striking up from the silver, made patterns on his cheek, and on his throat with all the music in it. He screwed up his eyes and said, ‘We should have the sun against us for a bit. But I can find a spokesman for you, if you like.’

From side to side of the field, the army buzzed, like a harp strung with horse-hair, and the sun rose higher ahead above the black forest of pine mixed with alder and birch that closed the battleground at its far end, and within which the Northumbrian army was waiting.

‘Send a priest,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I would go myself if I thought it would serve any purpose to be killed before a blow had been struck. He’ll have to be quick. They’ll be out of that wood very soon.’

He saw the man Eochaid picked, and watched him ride out to mid-field with two unarmed monks and the biggest cross they could find, drawing
men’s eyes from Thorfinn himself. It was as if a looking-glass had been diverted. He used the moment to check on his leaders.

Holding the men of Lennox and Strathearn on his left, on the edge of the boggy ground that ran to the river, were Gillecrist and Ferteth, with Bishop Hrolf, encased in crosses and relics, between them.

On his own right, on the rising ground that led to a wood, and then to the moors and hills that rimmed the horizon, stood Cormac and Gillocher with the men of Atholl and Mar, and the church-banner of Tuathal, holding firm those men of Fife who had chosen to follow the King rather than Bishop Malduin, his acolytes, and his family.

The men of Buchan and of Moray, who knew him best, he had kept in the centre under himself, with Morgund and Mael-Isu. Among these also stood the men of Angus, deserted by Kineth, with Malpedar from Moray to work with their own leaders and the presence of the Moray men to stiffen them. Above them, overshadowing the rippling wicker-work of personal banners, floated the white standard blessed by the Pope, in the care of Bishop Jon.

Behind him was the rock-fortress of Stirling guarding the bridge, the narrow crossing over the Forth. Behind that, among the bogs of the river-plain, was the wide crossing that led to their station last night and then, further north, to Dunblane, where their base was.

The horse-lines and baggage were over the river. Siward’s were in the forest ahead, along with six thousand men far from home and greedy for booty. An hour ago, all you could see was the sparkle of steel in the blackness under the trees, and the falling ray of an arrow when one of his men moved too near, having a look at the ground.

Now the trees were fenced with armed men standing shoulder to shoulder: brown, featureless faces above scales bright as fresh-landed fish. In the centre, taller and broader than any man there, his greying head bare, stood Siward their leader, Kalv’s nephew. Siward, son of that rich Norwegian fur-trader who had found more profit in England than in the uncertain fortunes of Norway. Siward, the man who had planned in his turn a fair dominion for himself and his offspring, and had seen his son die in the land of his rival. Siward, the man who, had he, Thorfinn, been standing under that cross and issuing that challenge instead of a priest, would have had no hesitation in ordering his best marksman to smite him dead with his bow or his javelin.

As he would do to Siward, given the chance.

Bishop Jon said, ‘Will you listen to that? I never heard the fellow so eloquent when he was blessing the butter. “
What hope has your fleet against the fleet of Macbeth? They have met, and your ships have sunk. What hope has your army against an army blessed by the Pope? Throw down your arms, and we will spare you. If your men are afraid to fight, as we see, and also afraid to surrender, place yourself in our hands. You will be an honoured hostage, and to your underlings we shall display our lenience
.’ ”

‘I told him what to say. You don’t have to repeat it,’ Thorfinn said. A flashing ripple passed through the distant trees and struck an answering glitter from his own side. Then Siward, his arm raised, had his men under
control, and in a moment the sound of his voice could be heard shouting his rebuttal.

Throughout, Thorfinn kept his horse motionless. It didn’t matter what the words were. He had had no expectation of doing more than exasperate, and supply a distraction. He looked round again and collected the eyes of his leaders. He had drawn his sword and held it, not yet in challenge aloft, but where the naked blade could just be seen by men on horse-back.

Only the leaders were mounted, and even that would not last long, although there were horse-boys behind with replacements. Siward’s army would be the same. A man used to wielding an axe fought best on foot, and preferred the round targe with its cutting-edge and ramming-spike to the long, harp-shaped shields of the cavalry.

Above the trees, a frieze of white smoke rose into the blue morning sky and hung unremarked under the sun, thickening a little. On either side of Thorfinn, there was a rustle and clash as men shifted. The priest, standing in front of them, was relaying Siward’s message, which contained words he thought he had forgotten.

Over the forest, the smoke looked like newly plucked wool, with darker tufts here and there, and glints of orange, bright as sunrise on spear-blades. A shadow passed over the empty battle field: then another. The voice of both armies changed. The rumour of noise from under the trees became spaced, punctuated by sharper sounds and sometimes by a subterranean crackling, like distant footsteps in frost. Then the sun started to darken, and the orange spear-tips melted together to form one mountainous band, and the spaces under the trees flashed and shook with leaping men and torn shouting.

Thorfinn said, ‘He will either send back a fire-party and advance with the rest while he still has them in order, or he’ll abandon both his carts and his cover and bring them all on to finish us.’

‘I think—’ Tuathal said.

‘Yes. Good. He’s bringing them all. Let’s go,’ said Thorfinn, and stood in his stirrups.

Every face was already turned.

The pleasure he felt, and the calmness, and the determination burned as clear as the trees in the forest. He smiled—the unknown, rare smile, as if it were his wife he was’ going to meet—and, lifting his glittering sword, thrust it upwards and forwards.

The answering roar blenched the flames back and cleared the face of the sun for an instant. The trumpets blew on both sides. Then, in a long, jolting line, Northumbria marched from the flames of the forest with Siward in the van, mounted now, and buckling the straps of his helmet before taking his gloves and his shield.

His voice, shouting commands, hardly ceased. It was not necessary to hear them. As they approached, the Northumbrian army began to divide, until it, too, was formed in three blocks across the limited ground, to match the three advancing rectangles of Alba.

The horses wanted to break out and canter. Thorfinn held his big gelding
hard-reined, and saw the mormaers doing the same. The marching-pace had to be held even and steady. He wanted Siward’s army over the centre, and also over the bright, narrow vein of the deepest of the many rivulets that seamed the field, running down to the Forth. He also wanted to see who was opposing him.

Cynsige of York in the centre, with Siward. The power of the church that consecrated the Bishops of Alba against the power of a dead and discredited Pope.

On Siward’s right, the standard of Siward his nephew and of Forne, who surely had no great experience behind him, and the great banner of Durham. Bishop Aethelric, this time, against Bishop Hrolf, the nominee of Cologne and Bremen and Goslar. Gillecrist and Ferteth should manage the nephew and Forne. Bishop Aethelric, he had heard, was accounted able even in Peterborough, and ruthless into the bargain. But he had not, perhaps, been taught overmuch about the battle-tactics of the Romans.

Siward’s left wing, though, was of a kind that spelled danger. Ligulf of Bamburgh against Atholl and Mar. Hard fighting-men all of them, and Ligulf with a reputation equalling Earl Siward’s own.

And with Ligulf, the banner he would rather not have seen. The flag of Kinrimund, with, under it, Malduin, Bishop of Alba, and his men, and Kineth, his lost Mormaer of Angus. Tuathal’s Fife levies would be opposed by their own flesh and blood. And the men of Angus, here in the centre, would be close enough to their fellows under Kineth to make it easy for them to falter or abscond.

All riddles could be solved. Including this one.

Siward’s men were over the stream. Watching, Thorfinn could feel the eyes of the trumpeter beside him burning into his skin. ‘Yes. Now,’ he said, and lifted his sword again, spurring suddenly as the trumpet blared, followed by those on either flank.

Now he was riding clear in the front, and so, on each wing, were Cormac and Ferteth, their shields held before them. The exposure lasted only an instant. A spear, too spent to hurt, struck his own shield and found no room to fall to the ground, for by then men and shields were packed close around and behind him, and the three wedges had formed the
svinfylkja
, the pig’s snout, the secret of Odin that he hoped fur-traders’ sons had not been instructed about.

Thorfinn spurred, and the wedge of men behind him and behind Cormac and behind Ferteth broke into a pounding run.

To the Northumbrian army they must appear as three arrowheads with a thousand barbs each, roofed and armoured on either side by the heavy, scaled ranks of their shields. The risky moment was the first, when they made impact. But his horse was from Normandy, brought up through Wales and trained to kill with its hooves. And once it went, he would be in the thick of it with all his weapons and a better chance than most.

He aimed for the centre, where Siward’s helmet flashed and dulled as the smoke wavered over the sun. He was conscious of a gust of warmth, brought
by the wind, and of a sprinkle of white ash, gentle as snow. He hoped, an instant before the impact, that the gambit of the fire was not going to spoil the gambit of the Normans, and saw from a distant glitter far on his right that it was not. The shields of his men broke bows against the shields of his enemies, and the shouting that had been going on all the time rose to a shattering yell. Steel flashed. He lifted his sword and slashed, one, two, three, at the men between him and Siward and then found himself hurtling beyond him, pushed by the momentum of his own men screaming behind and on either side. He serrated the air with his sword and used his shield as a wall and a battering-ram. Like sod sliced by the share, or sea by the bowsprit, butchered meat in its clothing reeled back on this side and that, and as men fell behind him, they were replaced in the
svinfylkja
by others. It was the same, he could see, on either side.

He knew what Siward would be thinking, behind him. Let a dart enter the body so far, and the body will give way and encircle it. He wondered when Siward would glance to the wood on the rise. When he would see the glitter transform itself into a body of fully armed horsemen thundering down to cut his army in half, just ahead of the three driving wedges. And then, having cut it in half, turn again and again at the charge to carve it, neatly, for Thorfinn’s well-placed and well-protected infantry to engulf and slaughter.

The Norman cry was ‘
Dex aie!
’ Coming from eighty throats, it swept with them down from the wooded foothills and made them sound like a flock of scavenging birds disturbed from their carcass. He saw the flash of Osbern’s teeth before the struggling mass all around him was rocked sideways by the shock of the cavalry; of live men flinging themselves out of its pathway and of dead men thrown after them.

He could feel the fighting around and behind him slacken. His horse had taken a dozen blows and was weakening. Thorfinn lifted himself in the saddle and saw men’s heads turn, and the flash of a spear to be deflected. He was the only man still mounted, apart from the Normans, and the Normans had seen him. Siward, taller than anyone else, was behind him and to the left. Thorfinn drew a great breath and roared, ‘
Albanaid!
’ and was answered by a shout that drowned that of the Normans. Then he shook his feet free of the stirrups and, lifting his horse for the last time, sent it rearing into the enemy mass to crash and sink amongst them. His pristine shield with the glittering cross was scarred and broken by blows of which he had no recollection. He threw it away and, transferring his sword to the left hand, felt at his belt with the right and pulled out the big Ulfberht axe. Tuathal, unexpectedly beside him, screamed, ‘My lord!’

The wedges had served their purpose. It was time to disband all three and convert them instead to small killing-groups, easy for the Normans to recognise. Already, on the side nearest the river, Osbern had reformed his men and was driving back again at a different angle. Thorfinn shouted to the men about him; and again, over a mass of heads, to Malpedar with a knot of Angus men at his shoulder. He had seen Mael-Isu drop a little time back, and the Strathclyde pennant had suddenly gone.

Tuathal said, ‘My lord, news. News! Your fleet is coming.’

Someone saved him from a blade he had not seen, and he killed the man who wielded it and began to fight his way back the way he had come, towards Siward, still calling orders. His fleet, whether it had sunk Siward’s or not, was twenty-five miles out in the estuary and its arrival was irrelevant.