Knights Templar - Temple And The Crown Part 42

Clifford rallied his cavalry as best he could and led them in another charge, but once more their momentum could not break the Scots. The knights rode in circles around the schiltron, probing it as they would a fortress, seeking a weak point in the defenses where they might break in. Unable to close with their enemy, they ?ung knives, axes, and even swords at the Scots as they swept past the forest of spears.

But the Scots held ?rm beneath the fruitless hail of enemy missiles. Whenever a man fell in the front rank, another stepped forward to take his place, keeping the spear wall unbroken and impenetrable as ever.

The knights charged again. Again the Scottish spears ran red with blood. In desperation, the English redoubled their attack, kicking up a cloud of dust that only added to their confusion.

In the midst of the English chivalry, Bartholeme signaled his own men to hold back.

"We must take a hand in this," he told Rodolphe. "We cannot allow our allies' incompetence to compromise our own intentions."

Forming the other Black Knights into a circle around him, he drew rein in their midst and rummaged in a pouch at his belt, bringing forth a handful of dust which he cupped in his left hand while he recited an incantation. With a ?nal imprecation, he blew the dust from his ?ngers and watched it ?y across the intervening ground to mingle with the dirt kicked up by the horses. As the dust cloud expanded, it swept across the ?eld toward Randolph's schiltron.

Sir Robert Clifford was wondering whether to abandon the ?eld when his bridle was suddenly seized by a masterful hand. Whirling, he found the French knight, Bartholeme de Challon, staring across at him, a determined glint sparkling in his cold blue eyes.

"You have one last chance to destroy your enemies," Bartholeme told him, releasing his reins, "but you must seize it now. Form up your men for another attack."

Gesturing, he directed Clifford's attention toward the Scots, where a huge wall of dust was billowing up to engulf them. Answering howls of dismay echoed across the ?eld from the Scottish spear ranks.

"Very well," Clifford said, renewed hope banis.h.i.+ng his weariness. "Again, my friends! Come to me, and ready the charge!"

From his vantage point on the high ground, Bruce was keeping a wary eye on the action to his left. He had watched Randolph's men ?ing back a succession of English attacks, and was satis?ed that they would hold their position. But a beating of hooves heralded the arrival of James Douglas, who drew up beside the king in some consternation.

"Randolph is hard-pressed!" he announced urgently. "Let me take my men down there to help him."

"We'll all be hard-pressed before the day is won," Bruce replied. "Randolph knows his task is to hold the ?ank, and that is what he will do."

"Am I to stand and do nothing, then?" Douglas demanded, his dark face ?ushed.

"You'll go where you're needed and when you're needed," Bruce snapped. "Now, hold fast!"

A startled exclamation from Arnault made both men look round. To their amazement, they saw the dust raised by the English horses congealing into a single black cloud that rushed down on Randolph's schiltron as though driven by a gale. Forming a line behind it, the English knights galloped forward to attack the Scots once more.

"What devilry is this?" Douglas growled. "Do the very elements rise up against us?"

"There is nothing natural here," Bruce muttered.

Arnault knew he was right. Fixing his gaze on the cloud, his right hand drifting to the slight bulge of the Shard beneath his hauberk, he summoned up his deeper faculties of perception and gradually penetrated the sorcerous murk. With terrible clarity, he saw the contingent of Black Knights advancing through the swirling dust.

Fingers curling harder over the bulge that was the Shard, Arnault called upon its powers-the ?rst time he had so presumed since the Templar a.s.sault on Castle Montaigre.

"Lord," he whispered, "by the power of Thy Word, grant me the strength to break the enchantments of our enemies before it is too late."

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Randolph, Torquil was fully alive to the danger. As the cloud bore down on them, the swirling dust formed wicked, leering faces, and an eerie keening dinned in their ears like the lamentations of the d.a.m.ned. Superst.i.tious dread struck fear into the hearts of many Scottish spearmen, and the schiltron ranks began to waver.

White-faced and wild-eyed, Randolph tried to hold his men together.

"Trust your courage and your spears, men!" he shouted. "Don't let this d.a.m.nable illusion overwhelm you!"

Even as he spoke, the cloud rolled over them, plunging the schiltron into screeching darkness. At Randolph's side, Brother Ciaran grasped the standard tightly and muttered a prayer invoking the aid of Columba and Saint Bride. Even as the words left his lips, a wing of shadow swept over him like an icy wave.

Hearing the Columban brother cry out, Torquil tried to grope his way toward him, but in the next instant, the English charge struck the outer fringes of the schiltron in a catastrophic clang, like sheet metal struck with a hammer. Torquil sensed, rather than saw the Scottish ranks begin to buckle as English heavy cavalry broke into the schiltron like men driving their horses through the surf into a turbulent, hostile sea.

"Cra-gheal, s.h.i.+eld and defend us!" he cried out, lunging at a glimpse of heaving horse, for only the English were mounted in this fray.

The press of bodies was too dense for lance play. The English knights used the advantage of height to lay about them with maces and swords, cracking skulls and carving through sinew. The Scots fought back, dragging knights from their saddles and dispatching them with the quick stroke of a dirk or the savage blow of an axe. All around them swirled the inky cloud, stinging their eyes and choking their throats.

No sooner did Torquil aim a blow at an adversary than his target was masked in darkness. Randolph shouted hoa.r.s.ely at his men to ?ll the gaps in their ranks and tried to discern through the murk just where the enemy were strongest. A great, dark horse burst suddenly between them. Again Torquil thrust out his sword, but the next instant the enemy had gone.

Up on the hill overlooking the ?eld, not far from where Bruce and Arnault also watched, James Douglas tugged furiously at his thick black beard as he tried to make out what was happening below. The cloud of dust had entirely enveloped Randolph's brigade, totally obscuring the action, but the shrieks and howls and clash of weaponry told their own tale of a desperate struggle in progress.

"Sire, let me go to their aid!" he pleaded of Bruce.

The king glanced at Arnault, whose attempts to engage the power of the Shard were not succeeding.

"Go, then," Bruce ordered.

Douglas sped away. Arnault, seized by desperation, turned to Brother Ninian, who had the Brecbennach clasped against his chest.

"This isn't working the way it has in the past," Arnault murmured, urgently fumbling inside the neck of his hauberk to draw out the Shard in its leather pouch. "Maybe I need to touch it directly."

"Or," said Ninian, "perhaps it requires contact with the Stone, or something linked to it, since this work is on Bruce's behalf. No doubt Father Columba can sort it out." He thrust the saint's reliquary between them, in which also lay the Urim.

"Take the Shard in your right hand, and lay the other one on the Brecbennach!" Ninian instructed.

Arnault obeyed. As he did so, a tingle of power communicated itself through his ?ngers-from the Brecbennach, not the Shard.

"Father Columba," Ninian said in a conversational tone, "we ask you to speak for the Stone, so that the Light of the Law may drive away the darkness."

An answering ?re quickened in Arnault's heart and in what dwelt inside the Brecbennach, expanding to make his living body a channel of divine light. Energy ?owed from the casket, through his hand, and into the Shard, which came to life in response. Before his entranced gaze, the fragment of the Law began to glow, so brilliant a blue that it put to shame the ?re of the midsummer sun; and yet, he sensed that it was not with mortal eyes that he perceived it.

Quivering with the ?ow of energy, Arnault directed the power of the Shard toward the cloud below, piercing it like a sword cleaving rotten fruit. Disintegrating patches of cloud dispersed like guttering rags of burnt cloth to reveal the Scottish schiltron still intact at its center.

There where the cloud had been, momentarily bewildered, Randolph glanced around him for the Scots standard-and seized it from where it lay on the ground. He could see no sign of Brother Ciaran, but he hoisted the banner high in de?ance of their enemies.

"For Scotland and King Robert!" he shouted.

His cry en?amed the Scots, rousing them as from a sleep. The sudden evaporation of the cloud had revealed the English knights isolated in small pockets that left them dangerously exposed to attack. At once they began to pull back out of range of the Scottish spears, but seeing them disorganized and demoralized by the failure of their last attack, Randolph seized his opportunity.

"Forward!" he yelled, waving the banner again. "Drive them from the ?eld!"

With a roar, the Scots moved onto the attack, jabbing their spears at any knight who did not spur his horse out of danger in time. Like a great spiny beast, the schiltron began to advance.

The English were stricken with dismay. Never before had they been thrown on the defensive by mere footmen. It had taken weeks of constant drilling to instill the Scottish troops with the necessary discipline to advance in such a fas.h.i.+on without falling into disorder. Now they rolled unstoppably forward, driving through the center of the beaten knights and forcing them to take to their heels.

Approaching from the right ?ank, a relieved Douglas saw that the enemy was in ?ight, and ordered his own troops to halt.

"Let Randolph have the glory of this moment," he told them. "He and his men have done more than enough to earn it."

Himself relieved, and sweating with exertion, Torquil gazed after their scattered enemies. Some ?ed back to the main body of their army. Others, cut off from that avenue of escape, rode for their lives toward the safety of Stirling Castle, bellowing at the garrison to open the gates to them.

He sheathed his sword and went to help Randolph regroup his cheering forces. Only gradually did it occur to him that he had not seen Brother Ciaran for some time.

Chapter Forty-two.

June 23, 1314 THE SCOTTISH ARMY WITHDREW FOR THE NIGHT TO THE forested security of the New Park. After defeating the English on two fronts in one day, the troops were almost giddy with jubilation.

The tale of how Robert Bruce had personally slain the nephew of the Earl of Hereford spread like wild?re throughout the ranks, raising the men's spirits to new heights of faith in their king and their cause.

But for Bruce and his inner circle of advisors, the successes of the day were overshadowed by a matter of grave uncertainty.

"Brother Ciaran has disappeared," Torquil reported grimly. "We've searched the battleground three times over without ?nding any trace of him, alive or dead."

"The last anyone remembers seeing him was just before that dust cloud swept the battleground," Ninian said. "Whatever has befallen him, it seems to have happened then."

"Which does not bode well for Ciaran," Breville said. "Most a.s.suredly, that cloud was conjured up by the Knights of the Black Swan."

"Why would they bother to capture a monk?" Torquil said.

"I doubt that was their original intent," Arnault replied. "If they took Ciaran prisoner, it was probably only as an afterthought, when their main gambit failed."

"Either that, or this Lord Bartholeme has deduced the af?nity between the Templars and the Columbans,"

Breville said.

"So what are we to do?" Torquil asked.

"Pray," Bruce recommended curtly.

"Surely that isn't all, Sire?" Fionn blurted.

"I understand and share your fears," the king said, "but the painful truth is this: If Brother Ciaran has been taken prisoner by the Black Knights, the only folk who might be able to aid him are those I can least afford to spare."

Ninian seconded this view. "His Majesty is right. We can't risk throwing everything away for the sake of one man-however dear to us he may be."

A bleak silence set in. All present knew only too well the crucial stakes for which this war was being waged.

"Can we not at least try to make mystical contact with Ciaran?" Fionn begged.

Arnault shook his head. "Too risky. If Ciaran has been captured by our enemies, they will try to use him as a weapon against us."

"Ciaran would never consent to betray us!" Fionn protested.

"Consent will not have entered into the matter," Breville warned grimly. "From this point onward, we must be doubly on our guard against sorcerous attack."

Uncertainties of an entirely different order dominated the spirits of the English n.o.bility. Exhausted and sweating, still reeling from the shock of their losses, they retired from the ?eld to rest and regroup as best they could. Scouts were dispersed to search for a suitable camping place.

Selection fell upon a spread of level ground a few furlongs to the north of the abandoned peasant village of Bannock, encompa.s.sed on either side by branching tributaries of the burn giving the village its name.

The streams offered not only ample water to refresh the army's thirsty cavalry mounts and dray animals, but also a protective barrier against the threat of a night attack.

Rude bridges of planks, plundered from the village, were ?ung across the southern branch of the burn to afford safe transit for the English horses and baggage wagons. Company by company, the various contingents of the army ?led across. Tents and cook ?res sprang up. All but one of the bridges were then withdrawn, leaving the English host encamped in bristling isolation, like castaways on an island set in monster-infested waters.

While he waited for his servants to prepare his evening meal, King Edward listened sullenly as Gloucester and the other n.o.bles discussed their various failures and setbacks of the day.

"I remind you, gentlemen, that in seven hundred years, no king of England has met defeat on Scottish soil," he said at last.

"Nor shall it happen tomorrow, Sire," Gloucester vowed. "We shall array our forces to overwhelm and destroy these rebels. And there will be no quarter given."

The long midsummer twilight set in, bringing some relief from the earlier heat of the day. The English chivalry spent the evening resentfully contemplating the morti?cation they had suffered earlier in the day.

The English infantry were similarly restless and uneasy. Many resorted to drink and ribaldry in an effort to fortify their spirits, but only added a further element of discord to the already-unsettled atmosphere.

Far on the northern fringe of the encampment, Bartholeme and the other Knights of the Black Swan established their own enclave, their pavilions erected in a semicircle overlooking the burn-a deployment designed to s.h.i.+eld them from view of the rest of the camp. With full night still an hour away, Bartholeme called Mercurius to his side.

"How is our prisoner?" he asked.

The dwarf's misaligned features twisted in a malignant grin. "Wis.h.i.+ng with all his heart he was back in his holy sanctuary."

"And what does our little man of G.o.d have to say for himself?"

"He doesn't respond very well to direct questioning," Mercurius admitted, "but it's clear he's had dealings with the Templars in Bruce's camp. I could smell it on him, the moment you brought him in."

"Were you able to gain any impression of their numbers?"

Mercurius nodded. "There are not many of them. But those who remain have considerable power at their command."

"That was made manifest earlier today," Bartholeme snapped, though he reined in his temper. "Keep questioning the little monk. At the very least, it would be useful to know what relics our enemies hold in reserve. But be careful not to kill him. Even if he refuses to play the role of informant, he can still serve as a Judas goat."

A little later, hearing what their leader had in mind, both Rodolphe and Thibault registered strong interest in the proposal.

"You certainly don't lack invention," Rodolphe acknowledged.

"Not only that," Thibault pointed out, "if we're successful, the results should win not only the battle, but the war itself! It will appear that Bruce and his companions have been struck down by a hand of judgment."