Read The Disorderly Knights for Free Online

comeliest lassies of Bonjedworth and Ancrum, Lanton and Bedrule, their bosoms veiled in sunlight but their voices unsheathed. What among the English had been disjointed talk turned instantly into babble. Sir Ralph Bullmer and his cousin shouted into it, silenced it, and wheeling, led their troops up the hill.
    For a moment longer, the furious figures at the top skirled defiance; then they clung together, gown to gown, like silenced bells as the drumming hoofbeats approached. Then someone knelt; others sprang aside; some broke away and vanished altogether beyond the rise of the hill.
    Useless panic, for where could they go? What farmer, in the shadow of Roxburgh, would defy the English and take them in? What farmer’s wife would succour the flesh with whom she and her husband were three?
    Sir Ralph Bullmer said to Sir Oliver Wyllstrop, ‘Why d’you think they were met at Hough Isa’s, Olly?’
    Sir Oliver, trotting on, shook his head. ‘If you ask the men to shoot, I fear they won’t obey.’
    In armour, no one can shrug, but the captain of Roxburgh castle laughed hollowly inside his helmet. ‘So long as they die, I’m not going to watch how they do it.’ An unoiled joint at his knee began to sob and he swore sulkily. There was a very sweet armful indeed, like a young cornfield in sunlit green silk, standing alone on one side of the hilltop, her pale face bathed in run mascara and tears. In the same moment she must have seen Sir Ralph too. She hesitated, turned to run, and then instead, trembling like a driven ship with her buffeting robes, stretched out a supplicating arm.
    Five cannon, hitherto concealed on the hillside by heaped grass and Hough Isa’s petticoats, fired promptly as one, blowing four hundred pounds of stone shot like an open hopper downhill through the packed men and horses of the English garrison of Roxburgh, killing one third outright with their eyes glistening still. Then, as thefalcons’ thunder deadened the ears, the tatters of Sir Ralph Bullmer’s force saw the smoke lift and several kneeling ladies, their headgear knocked awry, touch a match to their hackbuts and fire. To one side of the guns, a broad-built wench with a beard let off a crossbow, and from just behind her a flock of arrows arched through smoke and shot and fell, thinly slitting, among the petrified troops. Then the five falcons fired again, and those English who could, ran like stoats.
    Sir Ralph Bullmer, from pride and a burst girth strap, was the last to go. Bleeding from a scratch on his cheek, he recovered as the slipped saddle fell, kicked it free and bareback hugged his horse with his thighs and turned its head.
    A light hand on his arm stopped him short. Below, her floating gown filthy, the girl of the hilltop beseeched him, her eyes anxious cisterns of blue. For the merest second, Sir Ralph Bullmer studied her. Her hands were empty and her thin dress innocent of weapons. ‘All right. You’ll tell me what it’s all about, or I’ll know why,’ said Sir Ralph Bullmer hastily, and swung her behind him.
    The horse careered down the hillside after his men. From behind, the arrows still fell although the firing had stopped. For the moment, it seemed, no one pursued. The girl behind him laid her cheek on his neck and began unlacing his armour. He knocked her hand away and then grabbed his reins as the horse danced, nearly out of control. The fingers stole round again. His cuirass was half off. The more intelligent of his men had slowed a little and turned to await him; still there seemed to be no pursuit.
    He knocked the girl’s hand away again and kicked out behind with his mailed foot, then floundered as, saddleless, he nearly lost his own seat. Melting behind him, the girl’s limbs were untouched. She unfastened all the straps round his middle and undid his shirt; his swipe met thin air. Inward to his sweating body ran streams of cold air, through all the loosened flanges of plate metal. Clanking cuirass on