Page 131 of Tempted
When dawn arrived the following day, it brought rain. Under cover of the thick smoke when the Scots burnt their camp refuse, James moved his army from the crest of Flodden to the ridge of Branxton Hill, four hundred yards above the English. Bothwell and Douglas again urged the king to order a charge while the windy rainstorm blew the smoke down the slope, hiding the Scots from the English. The coarse wet grass, streams, and bog where Surrey’s men were forming their battle lines resulted in hours of confusion, but the king delayed giving an order until the day was almost spent and the sun began to set. By this time, the English had their artillery and cannons in place.
James Stewart finally gave Scotland’s master gunner an order to fire his artillery. The Scots guns could not be depressed enough downhill to do damage, but Surrey’s cannoneers worked their pieces with deadly skill, killing Scotland’s master gunner and a good number of the waiting spearmen.
James Stewart should have withdrawn his divisions out of range to the far side of the ridge and waited for the breathless English to reach the top, but he could no longer control his anger and impatience. With foolhardy and reckless courage, he led his magnificent army down through the rain and the smoke. James led one central column, and the Earl of Crawford led the other. The center advanced steadily with lowered spears, but it soon became a wild slide of barefoot men on a slope of wet grass.
Ram Douglas and his men made up the left flank with Lord Home and the Earl of Huntly’s Gordons. As James moved his column down the center, the borderers were away against the nearest English. Surrey’s third son, Edmund Howard, was leading a division of Cheshire men. Ram Douglas broke them, and they were slashed to pieces by the swords of the border moss-troopers.
Amid the clash of steel, battle cries, and screaming horses, Ram Douglas astride Ruffian came face to face with Davie Kennedy, who was fighting under the banner of Archibald, Earl of Cassillis. The youngest Kennedy had disappeared from Doon after he had betrayed Ram Douglas. He had hidden out from Angus’s men and from his father’s, fearing he would swing for what he had done.
When war was declared, he had come slinking home, begging for a chance to vindicate himself by fighting with his clan for his king and for Scotland. Davie Kennedy knew that a man could cover himself with glory in battle, and he imagined he could be such a man.
His father and his brothers cast him out and refused to speak to him ever again, but the chief of the clan said they would need every Kennedy.
A look of stark terror came over Davie’s face as the dark pewter eyes of Douglas blazed into his Clearly he expected the man he had betrayed to dispatch him to Hell with his dripping broadsword.
Ram Douglas felt sick to his soul over the lack of decisive leadership. Discipline was the thing that won battles, in his opinion, and neither James Stewart nor the men he was leading to their destruction showed the slightest scrap of discipline. Ram snatched up Davie Kennedy’s bridle in a bloody hand. The betrayal was not foremost in his mind. All he saw to his great horror was the extreme youth of the boy. Surely he could not be any more than fourteen. He brandished his sword. “Flee! Flee this damned place, Davie lad!”
The boy turned his half-maddened horse and obeyed both Douglas and his own instincts. Ram Douglas’s borderers, along with Bothwell’s had vanquished the Cheshire men and now raced toward the English camp.
Lord Dacre, in charge of fifteen hundred horsemen, spurred forward to join battle with the borderers. Davie Kennedy in full retreat easily recognized Lord Dacre, whom he had known all his life. Fate must surely have been smiling on him this day. His enemy Douglas bade him flee, and the only man who stood in his path was a friend. As David cried out with relief, a sudden look of surprise altered all the features of his young face Dacre wielded his swordarm with deadly accuracy. Before he thundered past Davie Kennedy, he had sliced him open from throat to heart.
Dacre’s cavalry and the Scots borderers were well matched in a fiercely fought battle using swords, spears, and lances. The Earls of Lennox and the gnarled Argyll were engrossed watching the fighting below their ridge, when the clansmen were suddenly surprised by disciplined English bowmen bringing up the rearguard, led by Sir Edward Stanley. The rain of English arrows decimated the Stewarts and the Campbells, leaving Lennox and Argyll among their bloody dead.
The center of the field was becoming a slaughterhouse. The English footsoldiers were armed with a bill—a short shaft of oak topped with an ax blade and a curving hook. The Scots who carried the seven-foot-long French pikes were unbalanced as they advanced downhill. The Scots who stuck with their own familiar spears were no better off, for the English soldier simply lopped off the head of the Scots spears and killed their defenseless owners.
When Sir Edward Stanley’s bowmen finished off the Highlanders, they came down the ridge behind the Scots. Surrey and Stanley now had the core of James Stewart’s glorious army surrounded. They gave them no quarter One by one each commander died with his men. The Earls of Crawford, Erroll, and Montrose lay dead in the field.
James rode deep into the English Division with one target in mind. He knew that in a sword fight with Surrey, he would emerge the victor. He would have succeeded, but by the time he came face to face with the hated Lord Howard, the king’s body was riddled with arrows, and his head had been severed by an English bill.
Ramsay Douglas, as part of the left flank of the Scots army, fought on valiantly They were holding their own, but they suspected the other divisions were not faring as well. Mercifully they had no idea that James Stewart, King of Scots, lay dead on Flodden Field, along with twelve earls, two bishops, fifteen lords, and nearly ten thousand brave followers.
It was almost dark. Ram saw only the man in front of him. It was Jock, his first lieutenant, and he was in trouble Ram swung his broadsword with an arm that was numb with fatigue. He dispatched two of the English to hellfire, wounded another, and let out a satisfied Douglas war cry as he saw Jock’s horse stumble away. He swung Ruffian about on his hindquarters, and his eyes widened in shocked surprise. Where had all these Englishmen sprung from? Suddenly he was alone in a sea of English. It seemed to Ram that he and his destrier received their wounds at the same moment. As he took the steel, Ruffian went down beneath him. Ram struggled to arise, but it was impossible. A lance had pierced him through the belly and pinned him to the earth. He could neither feel nor move his legs, and yet he was aware of a great heaviness, as if Ruffian were lying on him. Ram Douglas was inured to pain, and he kept his mind tightly closed upon it, but there was a warm, comforting feeling seeping over him that he almost welcomed. So this was death, then. He sighed once, then everything went black His warm blood and Ruffian’s mingled as it seeped into the earth beneath their bodies.
Chapter 40
Lady Valentina Douglas found that she could settle to nothing. She felt like a prisoner in her own castle. If only she had been born a man! They had the easier role in life, riding off to glorious battle. Ram Douglas would cover himself with honors on the field of valor; then, when he rode home to her, he would be insufferable.
Tina caught back a sob and fled out upon the parapet walk. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to prevent the sob from escaping, for she knew if she uttered one, a hundred, a thousand, or perhaps a million would follow it. When he rode home to her, when he rode home to her.
A whole month had dragged past since that day at the beginning of August when he had wed her and ridden off to war. There was nothing glorious about war, she finally admitted. It was hideous, it was obscene, it was madness. She dashed the tears from her eyes and searched the hills endlessly as she had done morning, noon, and evening since Ram had departed.
Tina had never been one to admit fear. When its specter had raised its ugly head, she had denied it vehemently, laughed in its face, and miraculously the fear had always receded. Up until now. This time she had allowed fear to gain a stranglehold upon her, and she knew that any minute she would lose control.
Her hands began to tremble as they cupped her abdomen. It was their special miracle that she had conceived another child so quickly. Would Fate cheat her once again? She hadn’t told him of the baby, and now Ram might die without ever learning of the child. She cursed herself for not telling him. The knowledge would somehow have protected him, given him reason to live at all costs and return home to her—to them.
Something inside her exploded, and she knew if she stayed cooped up one more day, she would go insane. “Ada, Ada!” She picked up her skirts and ran to find her “I’m going to court. News will reach Edinburgh long before it comes to Douglas”
“Do you think that wise?” Ada asked doubtfully, knowing a dutiful wife’s place was at home until her lord returned to her.
“Wise?” questioned Tina. “When the hell did I ever do a thing because it was wise? Pack our things immediately— we’ll leave at sunup. I will not wait longer!” Suddenly Tina’s knees turned to water, and she sagged down onto a stool. “Ada, the truth is I cannot wait longer. Disaster is in the very air I breathe. I cannot shake off this feeling of impending doom.”
“I doubt if any of the men will desert their posts and disobey Ram’s orders to escort you to Edinburgh.”
“Mr. Burque! We will take Mr. Burque. You pack, I’ll ask him now.”
When Mr. Burque saw her and heard the hysterical note in her voice, he understood completely that she could no longer remain passively waiting. He realized she might not be taking the right action, but for Tina in this state, any action at all was better than none.
“Rider approaching!” came the cry from the gate. Tina forgot what she was saying to Mr. Burque. Her feet flew over the flagstones, through the studded castle door, and out into the courtyard. She raced across the drawbridge, then went rigid where she stood as Heath thundered up to the portcullis, dismounted, and swept a protective arm about her
