His brother waved to Bad Tom and as they trotted, called, “No shouts, no horns or trumpets now.”
Tom’s laugh was startlingly loud in the clear morning air.
They crested a shallow ridge, and found the whole valley of the great river at their feet. Distant bluffs marked the Harndon side of the Second Bridge.
Gelfred rode up a path as if the meeting had been planned for weeks. He wasn’t smiling.
“De Vrailly’s up and almost ready to march,” he said. “You’re late.” Then Gelfred saw the Queen. In a moment he was off his horse in the road, and kneeling.
He kissed her offered hand. Then he reached into his plain green cote and pulled out a small, red banner. It had the pennon of a captain, and on it was a magnificent golden dragon.
“I brought it for the King,” Gelfred said. “Ranald sent it. He said he couldn’t bear the bastards to have the Royal Guard’s pennon.”
The captain rolled his eyes.
“It’s his by right,” Gelfred said. He reached out as if afraid of being bitten, and touched the baby. The baby made a fist, grabbing Gelfred’s hand.
“What a fine crop of royalists I’ve grown,” the captain said. “Chris, put it on your lance.” He gazed out over the valley. “We’re going to be visible on the crestline unless we move,” the captain snapped. He smiled at Long Paw-now Ser Robert Caffel. Long Paw was not dressed as a knight, and he had a heavy bow over his shoulder, a mail shirt almost black with oil and a green hood that went almost to his waist.
Long Paw took his horse from Short Tooth, another green banda man. “All right where you said, Captain,” he noted.
The captain waved his war hammer. “If only de Vrailly may follow our plan.”
They rode down into the valley’s long morning shadows.
An hour later, and the waiting was killing them all.
Mosquitoes-the first crop of the year-settled on the casa like a biblical plague. Cully looked reproachfully at Long Paw, six trees away. Long Paw merely shrugged.
Gavin felt the scales on his shoulders writhe and prickle.
He watched his brother, who was watching the road with a fixed intensity. It was the hour of the day when peasants went to their fields, when men yoked oxen or horses to ploughs if they had them, when the cocks ceased to crow and work began. As the weather was fine after days of rain, there should have been peasants on the road and in the fields to their front.
They were a mile or more from Second Bridge, where the road bent sharply to the east, following the contours of a hill. On the east side of the road-the inside of the curve-a round hill rose, covered in farm fields. At the top of the hill, almost hidden behind a high hedge that could be defended, stood the small village of Picton with chimneys smoking.
No one was moving in Picton’s fields, either.
On the west side of the road the ground was flat for a few furlongs until it dropped sharply towards the river. It was heavily forested in big, old oak trees with some maples and, in the centre, a stand of ancient fir trees like the masts of heavy ships.
If the road circumventing Picton Hill was a bow, Cully, Gavin, Long Paw and the captain stood where the archer would grip it, in the dark patch of firs at the centre of the bow. Gavin could see the road for a bowshot in each direction-almost to Second Bridge. And he could see up the Picton village road, a narrow lane between two hedges that ran up the hill like the arrow on the bow.
He hated waiting in ambush. He could see on his brother’s face that he didn’t like waiting either-he snorted quietly in frustration a little too often.
The mosquitoes were devastating. Ganfroy, the trumpeter, was fighting a losing battle with his self-control, trying to stay calm. He’d been bitten often enough that one side of his face was beginning to swell.
The captain snorted again. “I give up,” he said. “Nicholas, when I raise my arm, sound the-”
Up in the Picton hedge at the top of the long hill, a mirror flashed-one, two, three times.
“Son of a bitch,” the captain said.
The first riders were visible a few hundred heartbeats later. They were light horse-Alban prickers, young men in light armour on fast horses. They were in the Towbray livery, and they were moving fast.
They passed the captain’s position in the open fir wood so close that their conversation was clearly audible.
“… fooling playing soldier,” one young voice said with all the self-importance he could muster. “There’s not a soldier in fifty leagues.”
“Certes there’s none near me,” barked an older voice. “Now shut up and ride.”
The prickers passed.
The mirror flashed again. This time, it flashed just once.
The captain shook his head. “Ready,” he called softly.
Gavin didn’t know any of the banners that rounded the bend a bowshot to their right, coming from the south. But the enemy vanguard was well closed up, and very professional-three hundred lances in crisp array, all in full armour. Behind them marched a dense column of infantry.
The mirror flashed again. This was a longer signal.
“Better than I deserve,” the captain said, but his demeanour had changed. The anxiety was gone. He was smiling.
The enemy van was moving at the speed of a swiftly marching man. A babble of Gallish came floating on the morning air.
Gavin had time to think that just the vanguard outnumbered them enormously. And he cursed inwardly, as nowhere did he see de Vrailly’s banner.
Ganfroy quivered with excitement. The captain put a hand on the younger man’s arm.
“Nothing for us to do,” he said. “Gelfred will open the dance.”
The enemy vanguard began to pass them. They were so close that Gavin could see individual faces-some dark and heavy, some boorish, but many men were laughing and some-too many-looked like good men, good companions for an evening’s drinking or a joust.
He’d never fought this way before. He didn’t like seeing his enemies as cheerful, open-faced fellows.
Off to the south, there were screams. A cheer. More screams.
“Stand up!” the captain called.
All through the woods, men stood. They weren’t in neat lines, and here and there, despite the bugs, a man had fallen asleep.
The captain stood with his back to the enemy, as if oblivious of them, watching the woods on either side of him. Then he raised a horn to his lips.
The men on the road were just reacting.
They still weren’t sure what they were seeing.
Gavin loosened his sword in its sheath and gripped his spear. What he really wanted to do was scratch the new bites on his groin.
And perhaps hide.
The horn went to his brother’s lips.
“Now and in the hour of our deaths,” said a voice.
The horn sounded. As soon as it rang out, a hundred other horns were raised and blown, so that the woods rang with them, over and over, as if every hunting pack in Alba was coursing in the woods.
Archers with a clear lane of trees began to loose shafts.
Those without moved forward.
The horns went on and on.
Gavin still had his visor open. He saw Cully loose a shaft almost flat, and then take a few steps forward. Gavin moved with him. Gabriel had his spear in hand by then, and moved with them, and Long Paw had begun to loose-the range was suddenly very close, the road was right there.
A bolt or an arrow slammed into Gavin’s bascinet, half-turning it on his head. He got his right hand up and pulled his visor down and his thumb moved of its own volition, latching the visor.
On the road in front of them were the Gallish infantry-the routiers. They were well-armoured and most of them had heavy pole weapons or long spears, and big, heavy shields.