Ares flashed her a grin. “That is my intention, also.”
“God go with you, Ares.”
Corisande watched him head off into the de Bourne encampment where men were mobilizing. She could hear her father and brothers shouting at them. It seemed apparent that everyone was heading towards the city of Berwick and the mouth of the river, to both fight off the Northmen and repel the Scots that were determined to join forces with them. No matter what, they had to keep the Northmen out of the river.
Something told Corisande there were going to be a lot of wounded to tend to. Weary as she was, she had come on the battle march for a specific task. As she’d told Cole, she had no intention of shirking that duty.
Squaring her shoulders, Corisande went about preparing for what was to come and praying she still had a reason to live when it was all over.
God keep you, Cole…
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Seven days later
“Berwick held,” Cole muttered, looking over the battered walls. “I will admit, I had my moments of doubt. But it held. We have the castle and the town.”
He was speaking to Julian, Addax and Essien as they stood down by the river’s gate of Berwick Castle. They were on the rocky shore of the river itself, gazing up at the walls that had taken a beating from the Scots.
But the river itself was even worse.
Burned-out hulls, three of them, littered the shoreline. Those were the unlucky longships belonging to the Earls of Orkney that had managed to break the line at the mouth of the River Tweed the day of their arrival, only to get close to the castle so Jax could unload his war machines on them.
They fired flaming barrels of fatty oil down onto the ships, barrels they’d confiscated from a couple of the taverns in town and tallow they’d taken from several residences. They’d raided the town in order to get enough fuel to launch at the longships that were trying to come ashore, but once the flaming barrels hit the decks and spread the burning oil, the ships went up in flames.
Those who escaped to shore found a line of de Velt men, led by Cole, waiting for them.
Bodies littered the rocky ground, the shallows of the river, and even up the sides of the hill upon which the castle was perched, not only from the Northmen, but from the Scots who tried to use the river to re-take the castle in the same fashion Cole had.
Only they’d been unsuccessful at it.
After seven long days of fighting, the worst was over. Berwick was still standing and the English still had control of it. But the mess of the battle, and the far-reaching implications, would last for months and probably years to come.
William the Rough had already taken what remained of his army back towards Edinburgh, and that included the remnants that belonged to the Earls of Orkney. They had been decimated. Of thirteen longships that had tried to come ashore, all of them had been burned in some fashion. Only one was remotely seaworthy, and Caius had control of that one. They were using it to keep the captives, like a floating prison, and there were plenty of prisoners this time around. There was talk of setting it on fire and sending it out to sea like a good Viking funeral.
Jax was in favor of that, and so was Caius and many of the other commanders, but The Marshal thought that might be a little too barbaric. However, when dealing with Executioner Knights and The Dark Lord, there were no limits to their barbaric ideals.
Even The Marshal knew that.
On the sixth day of the battle, the reinforcements had arrived with armies headed by Gart Forbes, Cullen de Nerra, and Kevin de Lara from the Marches. The bulk of David de Lohr’s army from Canterbury was just a few days behind. New, fresh troops relieved those who had been fighting for six long days, which is why the battle wound up so quickly by the seventh day. The Scots were exhausted, but they didn’t have the reinforcements that the English did, so on this seventh day, nearly every part of what had been a nasty and prolonged fight was subdued.
Finally, the dawn of a new day signaled the end of the Scots and Northmen invasion.
For now.
“And what does the future hold for us all?” Addax asked in reply to Cole’s statement. “Now that Berwick has held and it is in the hands of the English, what now?”
Cole looked at his friend, a man he’d been close to for two years. “What do you mean?”
Addax lifted his shoulders. “Just that,” he said, looking around at the utter mess surrounding them. “Your mission is over, Cole. So is mine and my brother’s. What do we do now? Return to your father’s service along with Julian? Or do we find our adventure elsewhere?”
Cole smiled faintly. “I’ll have plenty of adventure here,” he said. “I am going to take a new wife and become the garrison commander for Berwick, as it now belongs to my father. Well, The Marshal thinks it belongs to him, but my father is not going to relinquish this prize, so I will be entrusted with it as a neutral party since I serve them both. The castle is mine. Julian is to go to Foulburn, my outpost, and assume command. With the Scots active, my father wants to make sure it is a fortified position.”
Addax grinned at Julian for what was largely a promotion before slapping Cole on the shoulder. “I am proud of you, my friend,” he said. “Garrison commander of this mighty bastion is a proud thing, indeed. Do you need a second in command?”
He meant him and Cole laughed softly. “I would not have it any other way,” he said. “Will you join me here? Es, too. If we can stand him.”
Essien was standing several feet away, listening to the chatter, but he didn’t seem very attentive to it. In fact, he seemed weary and morose, which was not like him at all. Essien was always the life of any gathering, even if it was just a couple of men speaking of the future. But not today.
Both Cole and Addax looked at him.
“Why so gloomy?” Addax asked. “You have been perfectly fine all morning until you went off to run missives for The Marshal. What in the world did the man say to you that has you so woeful?”
Essien shook his head, trying to perk himself up. “Nothing,” he said. “I am simply weary, like everyone else. It has been a long few days.”
Addax nodded firmly. “Long days of killing the Scots,” he said. “Truly, the bombardment of the longships that tried to reach the castle was a masterful stroke. I’ve never seen such skill, Cole. You are to be commended.”
Cole was modest. “It was not easy, that is for certain,” he said. “None of it would have happened had Julian not raided the entire town for barrels and oil. But the calculations of launching those barrels from the catapults so they could land on the ships was terribly difficult. I missed a few times.”
“But you hit when it mattered,” Addax reminded him, pointing to the burned-out hulls. “Here are the results of your skill. You are brilliant.”
Cole lifted his eyebrows. “Aye, I am,” he said. “And Lady Corisande is a very fortunate woman.”
“Indeed, she is,” Addax agreed. “When is the wedding?”
Cole shrugged. “I told her when this battle was over, so as soon as possible, I should think,” he said. “When the Scots backed away from Berwick two days ago, I was able to break away to see her, but I’ve not seen her since and as much as I love the three of you, I love her more, so I am going to find my betrothed and spend some much-needed time with her.”