The Mer- Lion Read Online Free Page B

went to war to defend his lady's honor.
    He issued his challenge and summoned his lords, the clans, and the Borderers. And the men came, for they loved their king. Thousands and thousands of them: barons, knights, free-holding lairds, farmers, laborers—common folk and nobles alike, plus all four Scots dukes, fourteen earls, and even three bishops. Seaforth was among those who answered the call. With him went Seamus MacDonal, now a big, blond giant of a horsegroom, who towered at least half a head higher than any of the other Seaforth retainers.
    Men from all over Scotland assembled outside Edinburgh, beneath the protective walls of the castle. After hearing Mass in the Abbey of the Holy Cross, alongside Holyrood House, the king and his lords rode out and down St. Mary's Wynd. With him for a distance rode Margaret Tudor, the princess of England whom he had the day before named regent of Scotland as mother of the two-year-old James V. In her very pregnant belly reposed the assurance James needed that his dynasty would continue. As the king and his entourage clattered by with banners snapping in the wind, pipes and drums setting the measure, those living in the noble houses lining St. Mary's Wynd rode out and joined the procession.
    Seamus, turning in his saddle, could see the Lady Islean standing on the steps leading down to the courtyard. She was joined there by Seaforth, who gravely took her scarf, tucked it into his sleeve as a token, and bade her good-bye. He did not wear full armor; he was going to war, not a tourney. And the horse his squire led was a cob, not one of his mighty destriers. Thus, mounting required no block and tackle, but simply a leg up. He leaned down from his horse to say something to the beautiful child who stood close to his mother's skirts. Whatever it was, it provoked a laugh followed by a kiss and then a salute. Then Seaforth was off, his men following after, under the six-foot-long Seaforth sable banner bearing a maned Mer-Lion, its forelegs ending in webbed paws, and, from the waist down, its body and tail that of a sea serpent.
    Soon the procession reached Cowgate, or the southgate, either a misnomer, for there was no gate joining the city walls there. The phalanx of nobles and their minor entourages filled the street back as far as one could see. Now, the pipes and the drums were nearly drowned out by the cries and huzzahs of the people cheering their king and his glorious army off to victory. Outside the wall, the army joined up. And so sounded the first sour note of the show. So disorganized, so eager to join in, and so independent were they, that some of the troops came to blows as to which would have precedence. The spearmen, in their eagerness to go to war, pushed forward. Like a row of dominoes, each forced the one in front to tread on the heels of the man before him until the Scots army was literally forcing its king to rush to stay ahead of it. Seamus feared for a while that he might get caught in the crush. Later he heard reports that men had fallen and been trampled in the melee. That night, when James met with his assembled lords, he hailed the event as a sign to hurry forward in this goodly cause.
    The cheers of the people stirred the blood of the warriors; making them eager to meet their ancient foe. And about them nature added her purple benediction: meadows of heather, spread like spilt wine—or, as some more cynical would have it, Scottish blood— across the hills and moorlands, with the feathery-leaved bracken in its russet glory enriching the scene. Seamus drank it all in. The hills, the sylvan settings, the clear streams, the heather—indeed, it was a glorious time to be alive. Cheerfully, willfully, agreeably, even eagerly, he and his fellows rode into war. Coming to meet them, perhaps less eagerly, but surely unwaveringly, was the English army under the command of Lord Howard, Earl of Surrey.
    The two armies met on September 9, 1513, in England, near Flodden Held, at the