Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

“Why the hell didn’t you just say that right from the beginning?” she snapped, gathering up her skirts and turning to run to Laird.  To the battle.

“How do you expect me to find him?” She spun back to ask the meddling old man.  “There are tens of thousands of men out there.  Arrows.  Cannonballs.  I’ll never find him now.”

“You’ll find him, lassie. Just follow your heart.”

“Follow my heart?  What kind of fairy tale bullshit is that?” she asked but Donell was already turning away.  Scarlett didn’t try to chase after him, knowing that it would be a useless endeavor and besides, she had something far more important to do right now.

Running back through the circle of women, Scarlett raced on to her own tent.

“Scarlett, what are you doing?”  Aleizia asked, scurrying after her.

“Something very, very stupid,” she said, snatching up her purse and slipping it over her head.  She had to save Laird.  She’d known it all along.  Laird was going to be as mad as an enormous, green rage monster when he saw her on the battlefield.  He’d likely hulk out completely, but at least he would be alive to do it.

“I’ll go with you,” Aleizia said.  “It would be better than waiting here for news.”

Scarlett shook her head as she pulled out her pistol and checked the magazine.  “No, you’re not.  You stay here and take care of that baby.”  She hugged the girl hard.  “And pray.  God, pray for us all.”

The sound of the battle was her compass as she lifted her skirts and began to run.  The smoky haze gathering overhead, the pall hanging like buzzards over the bloodshed.

Reaching the top of a hill, she paused, watching the battle.  A battle that no film could depict the essence of.  No director – not Coppola, not Scorsese – could capture.

The reality of war was not something anyone would truly want to watch, especially for entertainment.  Cannonballs flew flinging earth, blood and body parts into the air.  Arrows zinged by, taking down the unshielded, unarmored Highlanders.  Pikes lurched upward, piercing man and bone. And the noise!  Beyond the explosive of the artillery, the clash of metal and screams of man where horrifying.

The Scots warriors were fighting like demons but it wouldn’t be enough.  It would never be enough.

Then Scarlett saw Laird as if she were looking into a crystal ball.  Through the swirling smoke, there he was.

And he was fighting for his life.

40

The English army left its baggage train at Barmoor and set out in two parts.  The vanguard under the command of Howard, the Lord Admiral, crossed the River Till at the Twizel Bridge.  The Rearguard led by Surrey had crossed at a little known ford point at New Heaton and the two regrouped on the northern edge of the battlefield.

Learning that they were being outflanked, King James ordered a rapid redeployment northwards from Flodden Hill to the top of nearby Branxton Hill.  It was an equally commanding position, but without any of the defenses already prepared on Flodden, it was an ill-considered move.

They’d had another chance to gain advantage whilst the English army was crossing the Till.  Borthwick begged the King to let him release cannon fire upon the unwitting soldiers but King James denied the request, insisting that his enemy meet the open plain before they met battle.  They were waiting until their enemy was in position before the two sides began bombardment by cannon fire simultaneously.

The English compounded the attack with a rain of arrows from their longbow men, their archers far outnumbering the Scots.  Screams were drown out by the artillery, masked by smoke and fire.

Five battalions of Scotsmen waited on the ridge for their enemy to advance.  They had the advantage on the hill, so James was struck by horror when the King was provoked so quickly by the English cannon and sounded the attack, forcing them to give up their strategic position once again.

But give it up they did.  The far left flank under Lords Home and Huntly charged diagonally, picking up troops from the middle as they marched forward.  Under pressure, the English right flank was forced to divide.  Riding with them, James approached the foe through the fog of battle.

The English scattered under the force of the wild and willful force of Home’s Border Scots and Huntly’s Highlanders.  They fought as they always had, in close combat with sword, bill or bludgeon.  They took Howard’s standard.  The battle was flowing in their favor but it wouldn’t last.

Their center vanguard under the earls of Errol, Crawford and Montrose and another battalion under Bothwell and the Frenchman, d’Aussi, walked straight into a bog, heretofore unseen until they were ankle deep in the mire.  King James left his command position at the top of Branxton Hill to take charge and urge his soldiers on, bringing his division into the fray with him, a division populated by the bulk of the Scottish nobility.

James watched it, helpless to change the tide of history.  Surrey was massacring the Scots in the center, Scots exhausted from their charge through the swamp.  A barrage from the English longbows was let loose on their right flank, Argyll and Lennox, their Highland warriors not wearing a stitch of armor were easily shot down as they too slogged through the mire.

Determined to meet his foe on equal footing or perhaps to inspire his troops, King James dismounted from his horse and ordered his nobles to do the same.  Clad in full armor, they were nearly immobilized by the mud and James’ heart seized in anguish as he saw his young cousin Bothwell fall.  Then his uncle, George.

Leaving behind his successful flank, the soldiers of which were now looting the dead and injured English soldiers as much as fighting them, James forged a path atop his powerful steed in aid of his sovereign.  He hadn’t been called to the King’s side for battle but