Corisande was asking Gaia, who stood on the wagon bed, shielding her eyes from the morning sun as she watched the distant battle. Or, at least she was trying to.
“Nay,” she said. “Too many trees and hills. I cannot see anything!”
Now, she was jumping up and down, as if that few inches of height advantage would help her see clearly.
But for Corisande, it was a nerve-wracking waiting game.
Men had already started to trickle in to camp, being tended to by their own surgeons. There were just a few of them, really, men who had tripped and broken an arm, or one man who had been singed by his own flaming arrow. No one from the de Bourne army had come to them for medical care, so Corisande paced around, wringing her hands, wondering what in the world was happening. As far as she knew, the battle had commenced just after sunrise, but they were far enough away that they really couldn’t see it.
“Mayhap we are too far away,” she said. “How can men find assistance if we are too far to the rear to help them?”
There were a few de Bourne soldiers with them, about twenty of them, men who usually helped Corisande in the case of a battle. They were either too old or too crippled to fight, really only good for helping out those who could.
Their encampment was only half-set up, just a couple of tents to receive the wounded at this point. Because the battle was fluid and they would be presumably moving closer to Berwick, they hadn’t set everything up. Like the other surgeon’s wagons, they were waiting for the order to move forward, which was why Corisande was so edgy. Since they couldn’t even see the battle from where they were, she had no idea what was going on.
Or how Cole was.
That was her trouble, really. Thinking of Cole in the midst of that battle was driving her mad. Her brothers and father were in the midst of it, too, but she was accustomed to that. She was accustomed to them fighting. But Cole was a new element in this battle, an unanticipated concern that she had no control over.
It was a waiting game.
The position of the encampment was in a marshy meadow near the River Tweed. Behind them was an old stone bridge, spanning a narrow point in the river. They could see the bridge and its big, rock arches. It was a bright day and the fields and hills around were shades of green once the morning mist lifted but, in general, the area was heavily forested.
And it all seemed eerily quiet.
As Corisande milled around aimlessly, a rider appeared over the hill, heading in their direction. The men from the other encampments began to shout and everyone took notice. The soldier drew closer and they could see that he was wearing a de Lohr tunic.
He drew his frothing steed to an unsteady halt.
“The armies are on the move,” he shouted. “Prepare to move forward!”
Everyone began to scramble, including Corisande. She ordered the men to break down the tents and put the horses back in the harnesses, and the soldiers moved quickly to do her bidding. Other wagons for other armies weren’t as broken down as de Bourne was and they were able to move out more swiftly. De Winter was one, followed by Savernake. Those wagons were already on the road, moving towards Berwick.
Corisande didn’t want to be the last one in a line of surgeon’s and provisions wagons, so she urged the men to hurry. There were six de Bourne provisions wagons and the drivers were quickly hitching up the horses. Their encampment was closest to the river with Teviot positioned next to them. De Velt didn’t even seem to have much by way of provisions, so they moved out quickly enough. Teviot and de Lohr, who seemed to be the largest, were moving more slowly, preventing those behind them from moving forward quickly.
And that was to be their undoing.
Corisande didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. Her men had just finished loading the tents into their wagons and securing the horses when the trees around them suddenly came alive. Men in long leine tunics, with their faces smeared with mud and clubs or pikes in their hands, began to pour from the trees. Corisande watched in horror as Gaia was grabbed by a man who leapt onto the wagon bed.
But Gaia wasn’t his target. The wagon was. He threw Gaia down onto the bed of the wagon and leapt onto the wagon bench. The old soldier who was already sitting there tried to fight him, but he brutally clubbed the old man and as the man fell off the wagon, Corisande jumped into the bed. The Scotsman was screaming and whistling to the horses and the terrified animals bolted. Corisande clung to the wagon bed as it took off through the trees.
“Gaia!” she screamed. “Jump! Jump out!”
Gaia was hysterical. She was clinging to the back of the wagon bench, refusing to listen, refusing to release it. Corisande couldn’t let go of the side of the wagon for fear of being pitched off and she wasn’t going to leave her sister, so she begged Gaia to let go and jump, but her sister wouldn’t do it. She simply held on and screamed. The Scotsman drove the horses at a frantic pace onto a road which led straight to the old, stone bridge.
Corisande could see it in the distance.
“Gaia!” she cried. “Please listen to me! Jump out!”
Gaia wailed. Corisande dared to let go of the side of the wagon, creeping over to her sister, but being forced to grab on to the young woman when the wagon bumped over the terrible road. No matter how hard Corisande tried, she couldn’t force Gaia to release the wagon bench. She was incoherent with terror. Corisande managed to look behind them and she could see several other wagons following them, driven by Scots.
So many English wagons, heading for Scotland.
Corisande had to do something.
The Scotsman driving the wagon was inches from her. Looking around for a weapon, there wasn’t anything other than sewing kits and medicament bags. Fortunately, they were strapped securely to the wagon bed for travel, and they contained knives and bone saws. If she could get to them, she could use them as weapons, but the way the wagon was bouncing around made the process of retrieval extremely difficult. She’d have to get over to the bags, retrieve the weapons, and make it back to the bench without the Scotsman seeing her. That would prove impossible.
But she did have a kerchief on her.
Maybe she could strangle the man.
The stone bridge was looming closer. Corisande knew that once they crossed that bridge, it would be very difficult for them to return to England safely. They had to break free while they were still in England. Removing the kerchief from her head, she wound it up, took hold of both ends of it, and tried to stand up.
The Scotsman wasn’t paying any attention to her as she managed to get her knees behind him. It was enough fabric to get the kerchief over his head and around his neck, but the moment she tried to do it, the wagon lurched and she ended up falling sideways. The Scotsman, realizing she was trying to attack him in some fashion, kept one hand on the reins and grabbed her by the hair with the other. In one swift move, he slammed her head against the side of the wagon, hard enough to knock her senseless.
One more blow and everything went black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Berwick
They made it across the bridge.
Nearing sunset on the first day of the siege on Berwick, the English had managed to make it across the bridge and into the town. De Winter, led by Bric, and Savernake, led by Dashiell, had breached the city walls and cleared the town of any hostile Scots for the moment, leaving the berg quiet except for pockets of fighting. Now, it was the de Velt army sizing up Berwick Castle, which seemed to be an impenetrable fortress. However, as everyone knew, that rule didn’t apply to Jax de Velt.