Chapter Sixteen
“What did he say, m’lord? Will he help you?”
Boothe was a little drunk as a result of the wine he’d had at Ashleven and the drink had fueled his rage.
He was on horseback, an animal he’d stolen when he’d fled Septentrion, and he had about a dozen men with him, half of them mounted, half not.
They were sharing mounts that they’d stolen or taken from the Septentrion stables when the battle began, and four of the men were archers with full quivers.
It wasn’t quite an army, but it was all he had.
They had been waiting in a cluster of trees about a mile from Ashleven.
They’d stayed off any main roads, instead, using the fields and smaller paths to make their way over to the Earl of Ashington’s castle.
It had taken a few days to do it because the men had scattered when Septentrion had been taken.
Boothe had spent all that time gathering what men he could before proceeding to Ashleven but, as he’d discovered, that destination had been for naught.
“Nay,” Boothe said, breathing heavily from the exertion of rushing away from Ashleven. “That bastard Ashington is siding with de Luci. We shall receive no help from him.”
That wasn’t good news for the Septentrion men. There were so few of them left from the battle that they had virtually no chance of reclaiming anything. They looked at each other, with concern, wondering what Boothe was going to do next.
“You have your cousin to the north, Lord Hartlepool,” one man suggested. “Why not ask for his help? You are his kin and he must help you.”
Boothe shook his head. He’d already had this conversation with his Northman knight, a man he’d not seen since before the battle started. He had no idea what had happened to him.
“Nay,” he said. “He’ll not help me.”
“But what of the Newcastle garrison?” the same man pressed. “What of Prudhoe Castle? Surely they will come to your aid.”
Boothe was at his wits’ end. He wasn’t accustomed to such stress or exhaustion and he was afraid it was going to cause him to make a bad decision. He was starting to feel some desperation but trying not to. He wasn’t able to aptly deal with it.
He glanced up at the sky.
“Dusk will soon be upon us,” he muttered, wiping a hand over his face. “We must find a place to rest. I need time to think.”
One of the archers, a skinny old man with a deadly aim, looked at him fearfully. “What shall we do, my lord?” he asked. “Where shall we go?”
Boothe didn’t know, but he didn’t want to say so. He was verging on panic, too, but he couldn’t lower himself to that level. Not yet. He had to present a strong front for his men who were looking to him for salvation. For them, he always had to appear in control even if he wasn’t.
A thought occurred to him.
“To Whiteside,” he said. “To my hunting lodge. De Luci may have taken my castle, but he’s not taken the lodge. We’ll go there and prepare our response to this… this travesty.”
Feeling marginally comforted that at least they now had a place to go, the men began to move out. Boothe spurred his mount forward, back onto the smaller road they had taken to reach Ashleven.
They headed west, towards the small hunting lodge of Whiteside, as the sun began to set.
They raced along the uneven road, but their pace eventually slowed because of the condition of the road.
Night fell as they continued to travel through the hills and dales of the valley that ran between Hexham and Carlisle, an area they all knew well.
It was wild land at times, overgrown in places, but also full of sheep in others.
They passed huddled flocks as they went.
Fortunately, the mist that had been so prevalent for the past several weeks, the one that had shielded de Luci’s army, wasn’t hovering on this night, so their travel was relatively clear beneath a half-moon.
However, the further west they went, the more muddled the road became until they were unable to do more than simply pick their way through it.
That slowed their progress tremendously.
As the night crested and headed into early morning, they found themselves picking their way through a road that had been mostly washed away by flood waters from the North Tyne River.
Knowing this land as he did, Boothe knew this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, but when they finally reached the river, they saw that the bridge across it had been washed away.
Boothe grunted in disbelief.
“There is no way to reach Whiteside this way,” he said. “The river is too wide and deep here to try and take the horses across.”
The old archer was next to him on a sweating, exhausted horse. “We can go further south, my lord,” he said. “We would be closer to Septentrion, however, but it might be the only way to get across. If we go north, the road is rougher and the river is wider. We may not be able to cross at all.”
Boothe knew that. The problem was exactly what the old archer mentioned – if they traveled south where they would almost certainly be able to cross the river, they would be passing near the road that led to Septentrion, which was located less than a mile from the crossing.
Not that Boothe expected to be seen because he was positive that the greedy bastards who took his castle were tucked inside of the walls like vermin tucked tight on a dog, but the fact remained that he could very well be spotted.
Unfortunately, he had little choice.
They had to reach Whiteside.
Therefore, Boothe could only nod at the old man and, together, the group headed south along a road that hadn’t been damaged by the river’s flooding.
It was smooth travel until they reached the junction where the road they were traveling upon intersected with a larger road.
If he went to the south, he would run into the road that led straight to Septentrion.
If he went north, he could cross the river and reach Whiteside within the hour.
They paused at the intersection, clearly seeing the road to the south, when one of the men suddenly hissed.
“My lord!” he gasped. “Riders!”
Straight ahead was a heavy growth of trees, a vast cluster that lined the road a good portion of the way towards Septentrion.
Though Boothe could have directed his men to head north immediately and forget about the riders that were coming from the east on the road to Septentrion, there was a large part of him that wanted to see who those riders were.
Perhaps messengers riding for de Luci or perhaps even more soldiers.
In any case, curiosity had the best of him and he spurred his exhausted horse forward.
The entire group charged into the trees lining the road, losing themselves in the foliage as the two riders heading towards Septentrion crested a small hill and brought them towards the trees.
The sky was starting to lighten up, so he could see a knight and someone in a cloak riding beside him.
As the knight drew closer, Boothe could clearly see the Tynedale tunic.
Rage filled him. Here, he saw an opportunity and he motioned his archers to prepare their weapons.
He pointed to the knight with the tunic and they understood.
They waited until the knight and his companion rode past them before launching their bolts.
Four were released and two struck the knight in the back, who teetered but didn’t fall.
Boothe was hoping for a hostage or a dead man he could strip, but the knight remained on the horse as he continued on towards Septentrion.
Boothe stepped out onto the road, watching the pair ride away. Even if it was just one knight, he considered it a small victory. One Tynedale knight in payback for the dozens of de Reyne men that had been lost.
He hoped Brian de Luci would suffer somehow.
Little did he know how much.