King Hereafter (118 page)

The men on the shore cheered, shaking their swords and their spears, and the men on board the two leading ships cheered as well, as the seamen leaned forward, swinging the seventeen-foot oars for the stroke that would lift the prows safely home to their beaching.

A valance of stones appeared in mid-air and fell, knocking oar blades and oarsmen.

A fringe of arrows, whistling, followed it, thudding into wood, flesh, and leather. Men screamed. The leading longships, interrupted in mid-stroke, swung helplessly, half on and half off the shore-bank and fouling the ship close behind them. Archers and men-at-arms, knocked off balance, thrust and twisted and swore in both ships. In their sterns, men jolted over the gunwales found themselves swept away, sinking in midstream. Off the prows, the first man to jump knee-deep into the water clutching a mooring-rope met three feet of good German steel.

The fifty men on the shore, whose shields were not now familiar at all, were in the water before anyone else, and started boarding. Following them was another double line of fifty, risen from nowhere. And then more and more, running from all directions. And there all the time, a line of kneeling archers, letting fly from behind their ranked shields.

Each ship carried seventy-five men, closely packed, with little room to swing sword or axe against roaring trolls high on the gunwales, who walked on men as on a highway and brought steel, thick and thin, hissing down, cleaving and searing. The fighting groups overbalanced into the shallower water and continued struggling there, ignoring the arrows beginning to fall from the following ships of the line, swinging up, oars flashing to fill the breadth of the river. The fighting spread from the two helpless ships to the third rammed behind them, now cramped fast with a grappling-iron and rocking with incomers from the two dying vessels ahead.

A trumpet blew on the land. A fourth and fifth longship, shipping oars, slid to the rear of the third and locked, pouring fresh men over its stern. The dragon-ships of midstream, abandoning the dead in the first and the second, thrust forward and, turning rapidly in, ran up on shore further upriver and began to land men fast, under a renewed fall of arrows. On the bank, the
trumpet twittered again, and the water became full of spray and hurtling bodies as shoremen left their attack and threw themselves back on the sand.

Some of them, racing in from the river, met and clashed with running parties of mercenaries, cutting straight from their landings to intercept.

Horns from the fleet drew back the mercenaries. To shouted commands, they threw up their shields and ran to take up defensive formation. Soon, behind a barricade of shields and of steel, the helpless ships were drawn off, and the rest of the crippled fleet began to come in, two by two, and make their proper landings.

The misleading welcoming party with its treacherous shields had quite vanished, but for the dead and the wounded in the three leading ships and on shore. As the disembarked men were being lined up to march, a detail of mercenaries went from heap to heap, spitting those who still lived and removing what valuables they could discover.

It was when, on their leader’s orders, they went to search the huts and hovels and woods beside and ahead of them to find signs of retreat or of ambush that the news they brought back seemed to unsettle their leader and the noblemen from Northumbria and from Fife whom he conferred with.

Indeed, he gave the Northumbrians a taste of his temper.

‘Four hundred horses,’ he said. ‘My men say there are traces of at least four hundred horses. The men who attacked us just now all have mounts.

‘They will not, therefore, have retreated. They lie ahead, and since they can travel at twice our pace, we may be sure that for all the length of our march we shall be subject to ambush. I was not told, when we left, that I should have to fight a running battle with four hundred horsemen. I was told that a band from Levenmouth would be waiting, with a further support from the same source in three hours. I was told that your Earl Siward had the army of Alba immobilised in the south, and expected to overwhelm it. What has happened?’

But the men from Northumbria and from Fife did not appear to know. And so, black with anger, hot for revenge, the nine hundred invaders, who had once been eleven hundred, marched, sword in hand, towards Scone.

A third of the way towards Scone and when the running fight with the marching shipmen was at its hottest, the good news came to Thorfinn. Eochaid and his fifty horsemen had overcome the special detachment from Leven and were safely inside the monastery.

Two-thirds of the way towards Scone, Thorfinn withdrew what was left of his horsemen and, leaving the damaged nine hundred to continue their march, raced on to Scone himself, with all the men he had left.

He had sent word to Eochaid, and the gates opened. Around him in the yard, his men made water anywhere and, long-throated, poured down the mead and the ale and snatched bread and cheese while the monks clustered over the wounded. Eochaid said, ‘
My lord!
’

‘It’s other men’s blood,’ Thorfinn said. He caught a towel and, dragging his helmet off, scoured his face and his neck. He said, ‘They’re three miles away; about eight hundred and fifty. Did you get horses?’

‘Forty left of our own, and thirty of the besiegers’. They’ll be fresher than yours.’

‘Yes.’ Thorfinn tipped the ale-jug into his open mouth, and his throat became his own again, and the rest of his body. He said, ‘Give me the ten Forteviot men, mounted, and the best horses you have in exchange for our worst. That gives Cormac three hundred mobile men outside to harry them with, once the shipmen settle down to besiege you. Then the foot-army from Forth should be here to help you in about three hours from now. Do you want Ferteth to come in beside you?’

‘You’ll need him. You have your own Perth to guard, over the river. We can hold out for days. You know that,’ said Eochaid. ‘Is there any news from the Forth?’

‘We know the fifteen hundred got away and are coming. Bishop Jon sent word. We don’t know how Siward’s battle went. We should have news any moment. Look. Arrows and throwing-spears. We pulled a handcart off one of the ships.’

‘Keep the arrows,’ Eochaid said. ‘My flock aren’t archers.’

Thorfinn had already noted that among the fighting-men and the monks and the household there were women, and boys with clubs in their grip, and old men with axes. Not everyone had taken shelter in the hill-forts. He said, ‘They have been fighting beside us, too, all the way along.’

‘You sound surprised,’ said Eochaid. ‘These are their brothers and sons who are riding with you. And don’t you remember your home-coming from Rome? Do you think they don’t care who protects them?’

There was nothing, it seemed, that he was able to say. Eochaid lifted his hands to his neck and began to unfasten the chain of the Brecbennoch. Behind them, men were hurrying and horses trampling and snorting as Ferteth and Cormac prepared to withdraw. Eochaid said, ‘Why not take it? We have faith enough here. We shall save Scone if God wills it. And the invader will reach Dunkeld only over our bodies.’

The chain was warm. The little relic-house, five inches long, hung from his fist. Thorfinn said, ‘It deserves better than I can give it. I shall take it to Tuathal.’

‘Take?’ said Eochaid. His fresh horse was waiting, with the King’s saddle on it.

Thorfinn said, ‘There are friends of Malduin’s with the ship-army. Fothaid and Ghilander. We cut out a Fife man and made him tell us the plan for the men they dropped on the Forth. The foot-army from Levenmouth is coming up through Glen Farg and expects to cross the Earn at the nearest main ford and march to their friends here at Scone. They would double the numbers against you. They won’t be allowed to. I’ve sent Tuathal with a hundred horse to catch them in the ravine at Glen Farg.’

‘A hundred against nearly nine hundred?’ said Eochaid.

‘He won’t stop them all. But he might hold the rest at the Earn until our fifteen hundred come up from the south.’

‘And you are going to help him? Alone? There are still twenty Forteviot men here,’ Eochaid said. ‘And horses for them. Take them. I shall expect to see you back with your new army. You and Tuathal and Bishop Jon.’

‘In this world, it is a possibility,’ Thorfinn said.

It was time to mount. For the first time that day, he felt the ache of loss, and without real reason. He gave the only gift in his power and, removing his eyes from Eochaid’s, dropped on one knee.

Eochaid’s hand, still marked with ink, touched his hair, and he received Eochaid’s blessing.

Then he rose quickly, and mounted, and turned his horse with his knees while he fastened his helmet and the Forteviot men collected behind him.

Then, without looking back, he left Scone.

It was seven miles to the river Earn ford. He crossed the Tay from Scone to his fort of Perth on the opposite side and transmitted encouragement, he hoped, to its captain. After that, he turned south, on a fresh horse, with twenty fresh men beside him and the afternoon sun hot on his right.

He had been fighting, one way or another, since just after noon. He had been fighting or riding since three hours after sunrise this morning. And there were six hours to get through before sunset.

The toisech among the men with him wanted to talk, and he was sharp with him, because he had to think. Later, he relented. To think was one thing. To shut his eyes as he rode was another.

Three and a half hours after noon, he was close enough to the Earn to hear the shouting and deduce that the army landed that morning at Levenmouth had completed its march northwards through Fife and even its struggle, harassed by Tuathal, through the defile of Glen Farg, and was now here, on one side or the other of the Earn crossing. Then, rounding a hill and thundering over the plain to the river with goat-dung flung from his hooves, and smashed heads of ripe barley, and mussel-shells, he was able to see what was happening.

Tuathal had crossed the Earn and was on this side, strung out with what remained of his hundred horsemen.

On the opposite side were the men who had marched up from Levenmouth. More than eight hundred mercenaries, but not in battle order. Or only those detailed to keep guard against any hint of attack from Tuathal’s side of the river.

Behind, the remaining hundreds lay on the grass; or sat chewing, their satchels open beside them and their leather flasks between their dusty cloth knees. There seemed to be a lot of wounded. Tuathal had made a good job, then, of his ambush.

After that, of course, Tuathal had had to drop his attack and race to be first over the river, since he could not face eight times his number in the open plain between the Glen and the crossing. And the mercenary army, logically
enough, had taken full advantage of the respite. Whether to care for their wounded or because the men had rebelled, tired from the long day’s march and from the fight in the defile, they were being allowed to eat and to rest.

After all, they must expect to see very soon traces of the hundred of their number who had found garrons and arrived here before them. They would expect to learn of the success of the Tay landings, and to set off on the seven miles that would take them to the central strongholds of Alba, already besieged by their fellows.

Behind them lay Fife, tamed or docile or empty. Further south lay Lothian and the plains of the Forth, in the grip of Earl Siward’s army. They would not expect the taking of Perth and Scone to be easy, and night would fall long before they could send back to clear out Abernethy and Forteviot, or before they could press on the further twelve miles to Dunkeld. There was time to rest. By their lights, it was sensible; even necessary.

It was an unheard-of stroke of good fortune. The longer they stayed, the more chance it gave Bishop Jon’s army to arrive. The fifteen hundred men who had set off north from the Forth directly after the first struggle with Siward and who must be less than two hours away at this moment, marching up Strathallan by the way he had come himself, passing Dunblane and Forteviot.

Tuathal, spurring up to him, said, ‘You see. We tired them out.’

The Prior had taken his helmet off. He looked the way all the Forth army looked now, with brown keel-marks under his eyes and his riddled skin beaten like metal. Then he asked, ‘Eochaid?’

His eyes were on the casket. ‘Triumphant in Scone,’ Thorfinn said. He unclasped the chain and signed to the toisech, who was hovering, to lead his men to join the rest on the riverbank. The relic came free, and he held it out.

‘You are to have it,’ he said. ‘I am merely the messenger. Scone is invested, but there are three hundred horsemen of mine in the neighbourhood to keep everyone unhappy. Have you heard from Bishop Jon?’

‘No,’ said Tuathal. ‘I was hoping you had. Neither of my couriers came back.’ He took the chain and held it. ‘You should have this.’

‘It will be safer with you,’ Thorfinn said. ‘You will fight harder, but I am the target. Anyway, I have my axe.’

Tuathal’s sharp eyes relaxed. He said, ‘What will we poor priests do when you conquer, against a double invasion and your own new fleet turned against you?’

Thorfinn put his horse in motion, walking beside Tuathal’s down to where their own men waited on the riverbank. In relays, they, too, were resting. The wind brought the smell of sweat and horses and metal and beaten grass and sweet clover. Also, the sharp odour of food. He said, ‘If we conquer. It depends on the south.’

He dismissed from his mind, because it was of no concern at this moment, the fate of the army he had left fighting Siward. He had weakened his own side by subtracting two thousand men. But he had left them the inestimable advantage of the eighty Normans on their strong horses.

Face to face, these two armies would have to fight one another to a standstill, for neither could afford to give way. He knew what the losses might be. He knew that Siward, finally, might have just enough extra power to prevail, upon which his men had their orders: to give way; to appear to fly; to cross the Forth somehow at the wide ford, having got rid of the bridge. And to stand at the ford as long as humanly possible, denying the Northumbrians the crossing until they were forced to give way.