The Mer- Lion Read online

  Seamus, turning in his saddle, could see the Lady Islean standing on the steps leading down to the courtyard. She was joined there by Seaforth, who gravely took her scarf, tucked it into his sleeve as a token, and bade her good-bye. He did not wear full armor; he was going to war, not a tourney. And the horse his squire led was a cob, not one of his mighty destriers. Thus, mounting required no block and tackle, but simply a leg up. He leaned down from his horse to say something to the beautiful child who stood close to his mother's skirts. Whatever it was, it provoked a laugh followed by a kiss and then a salute. Then Seaforth was off, his men following after, under the six-foot-long Seaforth sable banner bearing a maned Mer-Lion, its forelegs ending in webbed paws, and, from the waist down, its body and tail that of a sea serpent.

  Soon the procession reached Cowgate, or the southgate, either a misnomer, for there was no gate joining the city walls there. The phalanx of nobles and their minor entourages filled the street back as far as one could see. Now, the pipes and the drums were nearly drowned out by the cries and huzzahs of the people cheering their king and his glorious army off to victory. Outside the wall, the army joined up. And so sounded the first sour note of the show. So disorganized, so eager to join in, and so independent were they, that some of the troops came to blows as to which would have precedence. The spearmen, in their eagerness to go to war, pushed forward. Like a row of dominoes, each forced the one in front to tread on the heels of the man before him until the Scots army was literally forcing its king to rush to stay ahead of it. Seamus feared for a while that he might get caught in the crush. Later he heard reports that men had fallen and been trampled in the melee. That night, when James met with his assembled lords, he hailed the event as a sign to hurry forward in this goodly cause.

  The cheers of the people stirred the blood of the warriors; making them eager to meet their ancient foe. And about them nature added her purple benediction: meadows of heather, spread like spilt wine—or, as some more cynical would have it, Scottish blood— across the hills and moorlands, with the feathery-leaved bracken in its russet glory enriching the scene. Seamus drank it all in. The hills, the sylvan settings, the clear streams, the heather—indeed, it was a glorious time to be alive. Cheerfully, willfully, agreeably, even eagerly, he and his fellows rode into war. Coming to meet them, perhaps less eagerly, but surely unwaveringly, was the English army under the command of Lord Howard, Earl of Surrey.

  The two armies met on September 9, 1513, in England, near Flodden Held, at the base of Branxton Hill.

  The cannons played overture to this battle, a deep thumping tympany serving as counterpoint to the high-pitched sounds of men preparing for war: the clash of metal on metal, horns blaring and wailing and just as shrilly replying, the cries of men seeking to cheer, rally, and bolster the confidence of their fellow men while striking a note of fear in their opponents.

  Seamus never did understand what, if any, were the battle plans. He was too wrought up by the sudden realization that this was actually war, that he was in it; that he couldn't change his mind now and go back; and that, more than anything else in the world, he needed to piss just one more time. Just then the Borderers under the Earl of Home and the Gordons under their clan chief, the Earl of Huntley, advanced. The Mackenzies led by Seaforth went with them and Seamus forgot everything else but staying close to his lord. Down the hill they charged, fell upon a group of men, broke through them and surged on toward the English camp, stopping only to take prisoners. Then, though their leaders urged them on, many began to plunder the dead and the helpless, fallen living.

  Seaforth's squire was among the fallen; and on the battlefield Seamus was given an impromptu promotion, confirmed while the army was stopped. As he watched, of a mind to ask Seaforth's permission to join in plundering, horsemen appeared on their flank. The English had struck back. Now there was fighting in earnest and men falling left and right. After the first furious moments, each side drew back to regroup; it was obvious they were well-matched, neither side having an advantage in men or position, and thus neither eager to renew the attack. So they stood facing each other like two angry dogs, their hair on end, their lips drawn back in a snarl, their motions stiff-legged as if to attack.

  However, as the noises of the battle raging elsewhere grew even louder, there seemed to be an unspoken but mutual understanding between these two factions. Each side withdrew just a bit... and then some more, never relaxing their guard, of course. Finally to Seamus's surprise, the Scots were back at Branxton Hill. From there they could see, in dusty but vivid panorama, the course of the battle. It was a preview of Hell.

  The sounds were deafeningly loud, and dominating all else were high-pitched screams that repeated and resounded and never ceased. The acrid smell of gunpowder clung to his nostrils, as well as the sickeningly sweet odor of blood. Dust rose from the battle, pierced now and again by brief slashes of lightning, the spark of metal on metal. No one in his fight mind, thought Seamus, would voluntarily go down into that inferno. That, he saw with horror, was exactly what the Earls of Huntley and Seaforth planned to do. Like lemmings in sight of the sea, they threw themselves suicidally into battle. Down they went into the face of a rain of arrows. Horses fell, pulling down their riders, leaving large gaps in the line of spearmen. Once into the thick of things, dead Scots tripped their fellows up and made the way treacherous. Courage the Scots had in abundance.. .plus the strength of men whose leader fought alongside and among them, unlike the British whose king this day was in France, fighting a war more to his vainglorious liking.

  But the Scottish spear on which James and the rest so relied had met its match in a better weapon: the bill, a six-foot-long shaft of wood topped with a combination ax blade and curving hook. Deftly the English billman lopped off the head of the spear before him, and then did the same to its owner. One and two, and one and two, and do it again. Slowly but methodically and invincibly, the wielders of these weapons advanced, using the steady, back-and-forth sweep of a scyther. Their harvest was death, and it recognized no rank. James IV himself, fighting on although shot full of arrows and with one hand almost severed at the wrist, fell victim to one swift stroke of a bill that separated head from neck.

  Seaforth went down, too, victim to a blow that Seamus didn't see. Seamus panicked. He would have run if he'd known where to go. But in the chaos, there was no sense of left or right, north or south. There were only waves of fighting that one rode out as well as one could. Not knowing what else to do, he straddled the body of his lord. So large, vigorous and strong was he that he managed to foil four bills and kill the men who wielded them, until a blow from behind flattened him. When he fell, his massive body cloaked the smaller one of his lord's, shielding it from the British carrion who came at dusk to strip the corpses of the nobles. Seamus regained consciousness before all of the plunderers had passed but cannily played dead; however, his bladder could be denied no longer. Seamus pissed in his breeches, unwittingly wetting the lord of Seaforth beneath him.

  When the British withdrew, chased by darkness back to their camp to celebrate victory, Seamus carried the body off the field and up Branxton Hill, intending to give it decent burial. He was surprised to find mat some Scots were still stubbornly encamped there. The Home Clan, who had fought the vanguard of the British alongside the Gordons and Mackenzies, had refused to join in that last self-destructive charge into battle. When Seamus starnmeringly inquired as to why the Borderers were there, Archibald, the third Earl of Home, gave the same answer he had given Huntley and Seaforth a few hours before: "He does well that does for himself. We have fought our vanguard already; let others do as well as we."

  (Weeks later, tales circulated among the Scots that it was not a bill, but a spear wielded from behind by a man of the Home Clan that caused the death of the king. When Seamus was asked for confirmation because he had talked to Home's men before and after the final battle, he refused to comment. He spoke only of a debt owed the Border chieftain for the loan of a horse to carr
y home the corpse of Seaforth.)

  From their position on high ground, the few Scots who remained spent a sleepless night—kept awake by the moans and cries of their fellows down on Flodden Field. Seamus would have gOne down to attempt to succor them, but he was not sure that Home's Borderers would have let him return.

  Down there, the vast majority of James's brave army perished. Twelve earls, three dukes, all of the bishops who had ridden into battle joined the king in death. Long live the new king... the two-year-old nephew of the man whose army had massacred the Scots, decimated the ranks of her nobility, arid destroyed with one stroke most of her country's leadership.

  At dawn when the first of the scavengers came out onto the battlefield, the hills around them were clean of surviving Scots. During the night, the Borderers had begun their way home. Seamus too, with the body of his lord tied on a horse.

  The jostling of the horse roused the earl from his deep coma, and he moaned, frightening Seamus momentarily. Then, filled with joy, he would have cut his master loose to ride upright, but the semiconscious earl was aware enough to decide that riding tied was faster and surer.

  Not until the battle was left far behind, did Seamus stop to make camp, and to unloose Seaforth from his packhorse. Then it was time to examine the wounded arm. What he saw made him all the more determined to get the earl home as fast as possible. There had been great loss of blood. Seaforth's lips were blue, his face white, his hands palsied. The ropes cutting off circulation had stemmed the bleeding, and a clot of sorts had formed, but the clot was blackish, the edges of the wound purple and angry. Flies had been at it, too, and hung in clumps from it. Shooing the flies away was easy, but it was difficult to bathe the wound without starting the bleeding again. Seamus felt that a man needed all the blood he carried with him. "If the good Lord wanted us rid .of our excess blood, he'd arrange regular fluxes for us like he does with our womenfolk." Once the wound was cleansed and bandaged, and the earl rested a bit, they were off again in haste to Scotland and the nearest of the earl's homes, that in Edinburgh.

  As Seamus led the horse up St. Mary's Wynd, he was reminded mat less than a fortnight before, they had left the Countess of Seaforth there in attendance on the pregnant Queen Margaret. Ten lances, or one hundred men, had gone with .the earl, plus thirty mounted men, to join the largest army ever gathered together by a king of Scotland before or since. Now Seamus, the earl, and one borrowed horse were all that returned of the Mackenzie contingent.

  Seamus surrendered his charge gladly to the anxious countess. Before he left, however, he blurted out the bad news of her king father and bishop half brother.

  "The one loved me much, I'll sorrow for turn on the morrow. As for the other..." The countess shrugged her shoulders expressively, "Time now for the living; my lord husband and my very faithful Seamus. Now, hie you to your bed. If you collapse here, 'twould take too many of us to carry you."

  Seamus managed a weary bow in her direction. Turning to leave, he hadn't taken more than a step or two when her elegant, bejeweled white hand on his arm stopped him.

  "Seamus," she said, her blue black eyes shining with unshed tears, "Seamus, how can I thank you for Seaforth's life?"

  Seamus, for all his strength, was unable to cope with the emotionalism of a woman. He turned pink with embarrassment and failed to meet her eye. The two stood there at an impasse, until finally the lady took his enormous hand in hers and brought it to her lips. At the touch of her soft lips, the spell was broken, Seamus was released from his immobile state. "Lady," he stammered, "don't— It's late—I—"

  "Yes, I know." But she didn't release his hand. "Get you to bed, dear, good, sweet friend."

  Looking down into that loving face, he held his breath lest he follow his impulse and kiss her. He breathed a large sigh of relief when finally she released his hand, and he fled from the room like a guilty child. Instinctively he headed for the haven of Nelly's large bed in an alcove off the kitchen. Slaveys, seeing the look in eyes glazed with fatigue and suppressed emotion, made way for his lumbering progress; men, one hastened to alert Nelly to the return of her man. When she rushed to his side, she found him fast asleep, fully dressed, sprawled on his back across the bed. Her attempts to shake him awake went for nought. Pushing and shoving him about, she determined that he had no major wound. Having to be satisfied with that, she unlaced his boots and tugged futilely on one. It didn't budge. Nor were her efforts to remove his tunic more successful; his dead weight was too much for her body heavy with his child, impervious to her efforts, he slept on, never knowing nor stirring when Nelly joined him in bed. Nor did he awaken when, before dawn, she crept from his side to rouse the kitchen staff. Through breakfast and supper he slept, totally oblivious to the sounds of a large staff preparing, serving, and cleaning up after meals eaten by a staff numbering in the hundreds.

  CHAPTER 2

  Daylight had dimmed and nighttime was upon them again when Nelly tried once more to awaken Seamus. He woke up swinging, thinking he was back in Flodden. Two months, even six weeks before, she could have dodged his wild blows. Not today. Not with his child due within the month. His cuff sent her reeling across the room to slide down against the wall like a sack of wheat, landing on her bottom with a loud "oof." Seamus, befuddled by sleep, watched dumbfounded for a long minute. Then, realizing what he'd done and immediately contrite, he leaped to his feet, walked out of his loosened boots, and fell his full length on the stones.

  "Are you hurt, Nelly girl?" he asked, looking up at her from the floor.

  She shook her head. "No thanks to you. And you?"

  He looked at her, she at him, and both broke into laughter.

  The lackey, at whose instigation she'd awakened her man, stared at the two as if they had lost their senses. And when they made no attempt to get up immediately, he cleared his throat self-importantly to get their attention. "Seamus, the lady sent me for you," he announced, his disapproval of these two big people sounding in every syllable.

  "Aye, be right with you," said Seamus, reaching for his boots. While he put them back on, Nelly, with a flurry of white petticoats, rose awkwardly to her own feet. Reaching into the pocket suspended from a cord around her waist, she brought forth a small flask of wine

  and one well-squashed napkin containing a flattened slab of bread.

  "Now, look what you've done," she began, but Seamus husked her.

  "Nay, Nelry, that's just the way I like it," he protested, manfully chewing off a big chunk.

  Nelly wasn't mollified; her expression softened, however, as she saw how hard he worked at his chewing while trying to smile at her. "Aye, eat hearty. Drink, too. You been weakened by your long sleep judging from that love-tap you just fetched me."

  With that, she gave him a cuff that sent him staggering on his way, for Nelly was as big for a woman as Seamus was for a man. Passing through the kitchen, he paused now and then to wash down the bread with a hearty swig of wine. The lackey, following close on his heels, twice ran into him. Seamus, in disgust, motioned him to lead the way up the stairs to the courtyard... only to call him back while he took a piss on the manure pile outside the mew doors. His audience, irritated at first by the delay, was impressed in spite of himself by the strength and duration of the man's relievings.

  Finished, his codpiece tied and his points secured, Seamus followed his guide past the chapel and into the hall, behind the screen's passage, up the stair and into the upper chamber of the cross-wing and from there into the solarium. The room, the largest on the second story, was well lit and well peopled. Still a bit muddled, Seamus thought himself come to Bedlam, St. Mary's Hospital for the insane in London.

  In the big four-poster bed in the middle of the room lay Seaforth, ignored by his men as they argued among themselves. The countess was deep in debate with Father Cariolinus, the aged family chaplain, and contending between themselves were two total strangers, both ill kept and shabby. The tonsured one Seamus surmised to be a priest-physician.

 
"God pray," he said silently, "let the man be a little skilled and not simply a horse-leech." Long before, Seamus had come to the decision that it would be better to die than be mangled at the hands of. most so-called physicians.

  The grubby priest was arguing animatedly with an equally dirty, little man of indeterminate age, his short robe stained, splotched, and grime-encrusted, his boots badly patched and run down at the heels, his stockings sagging about his scrawny calves. This was undoubtedly the priest's barber-assistant. That he had been admitted to this chamber boded no good for the earl.

  For the past four hundred years, ever since a papal decree that no priest willingly shed blood, the gorier aspects of medical care had been relegated to a lay brother whose only real expertise with the razor might lie in shaving his priest's tonsure. Such a man bled the patient, drew teeth, and, as Seamus recalled queasily, sawed off limbs.

  Off to one side was still a third stranger. His young, apple-cheeked face looked more used to laughter than serious discussion, and his appreciation of the good life showed in the way his fur-trimmed, red woolen physician gown bellied out in front. Belying the overall impression of softness and baby-fat were the firm, muscular hands he clasped before him. Except for his robes, he didn't look like any physician Seamus had seen before. Priest and barber argued over the juxtaposition of Jupiter with Gemini, deter-rnining the best time for bleeding. The stranger ignored them. Instead, he studied the subject of all the discussion—the Earl-of Seaforth. Doped with opium—the room reeked of it—the man lay in his bed like one already dead. The pallor of his face was incongruous and frightening in a man who gloried in the hunt, the passage of arms, a tilt at the quattrain, and the breaking of a horse. For the first time, Seamus realized, the earl's famous prematurely silver white hair seemed appropriate, for today the earl looked every one of his forty-one years.