I managed to become king of Norway as well as Scotland by a tricky chain of inheritances and assassinations. I then took a summer vacation, and when I got back some AI dynasty was on the throne of Scotland. I straightaway invaded with my claim on the king-of-Scots title; unfortunately, while I was away, Fivoin (playing England) had married my sister, and could enforce her claim to the North. There’s really only room for one player in the Isles… and the one who has England and Wales has a bit of an advantage against the one with Scotland and Norway.

Outside Aberdeen Castle, Scotland

June 7th, 1121

Early afternoon

The truce party bore no less than three banners: A green branch of parley, the Lions of England – and beside it, flying at equal height, the red tree on a golden field of the MacRaghnalls. The same banner flew behind Gilpatrick, borne aloft by his kinsman Harald, a little lower than the Lion of Norway. His Norse jarls had their pride, and would not allow his personal sigil to be held as high as the symbol of their country; but apparently someone on the other side thought differently. He glanced mordantly at Aberdeen Castle, where Scotland’s Lion Rampant still flew defiantly above the central turret; but Morgan had not seen fit to hoist the banner of his clan. No doubt he was emphasizing the unity of his realm, rather than the primacy of his family; desperate men could afford less in the way of proud gestures.







The arms of England, Norway, and Scotland: “Gules, three lions passant guardant pale or, langued and armed azure”; “Gules, a lion rampant or, crowned and bearing an axe with blade argent”; “Or, a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure, within a double tressure flory-counter-flory of the second”.

A surfeit of lions, Gilpatrick thought in brief amusement; and both England’s and Norway’s were gold on a red field, at that. The Northern kingdoms were more alike, in custom and law and speech, than they sometimes cared to admit. But his brief humour passed as the truce party came close; they might all be standing on a red field before the day was done. He raised his hand in salute, and was unsurprised to see that the hand that answered was slimly feminine. So, she’d come herself; good. That would make it easier.

“Agnes,” he greeted his older sister.

“Gilpatrick,” she returned, matching his measured nod.

“Our grandfather,” he began obliquely, “him they called ‘the Great’, always meant for Scotland and Norway to be united. That’s why he married our father to Queen Ingrid.”

“That’s true,” Agnes allowed; but her lips twitched. “Perhaps you should give me your crown, then.”

Gilpatrick’s lips pressed together, and he controlled his temper. She had always known how to annoy him, especially when she thought she had the upper hand.

“All right, I’ll ask you plain. Will you go away, and leave Morgan to me? The crown of Scotland is rightly mine.”

“Is it, indeed? The Edinburgh Charter makes all children of the King’s body eligible for election; my father was King of Scots as much as yours. And I’ve brought twenty thousand men to vote for me.”

That was twice as many men as Gilpatrick had, if she was telling the truth. But he recalled a bright summer’s day twenty years before, and a boy of ten summers sent off to hunt the red snipe while his older sister did something-or-other she didn’t want him along for; Agnes could lie with a perfectly straight face. It had taken him all day to get back, empty-handed, to be laughed at by everyone who heard the tale. He raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“A good tally,” he said neutrally. “Well-fed, hearty eaters, are they? Stout yeomen of Merry Old England, good trenchermen all?”

Nobody else would have seen it, perhaps, but his brother’s eye picked out Agnes’s tiny flinch, and he nodded to himself. His own army was carried by broad sails, and could range far up and down the coast for its supplies. The English host, however large it was – and it would likely include many lightly-armed farmers, no equal match for his mailed hirdsmenn – had come north on foot, and could not long remain in any one place, particularly one that the Norwegian army had already eaten bare.

“Hearty enough,” she replied calmly. “Come now, brother mine! If you were King of Scots already, with the lairds behind you, then it’s true, you might retreat and harry and ambush, and drive me back home empty-handed. ‘On foot should be all Scottish war, and burn ye the plainlands them before’; no? But you’re as much a foreigner here as I. The crofters are keeping their stores in hidden places for you as much as me.”

“The MacRaghnall lairds rose in my cause,” he protested. “King over the Water, they call me.”

“Yes, and do you think they care which MacRaghnall sits the throne? And they’ve felt the weight of England’s hand, but Norway is unknown to them. Flattering names be damned.”

He held up his hand. “We’re getting sidetracked,” he said. “Sister mine, do you care which MacRaghnall sits the throne of Scotland?”

“Yes, I do,” she returned. “Do you? Enough to fight outnumbered twice over?”

He cocked his head. “Perhaps a compromise can be reached,” he admitted. “Suppose you were crowned Queen of Scots, in your own right and name, with your husband only as consort. Who would inherit?”

“Theobald, of course. My eldest son.”

“Who carries the name de Plage d’Or, not MacRaghnall.”

“Men’s laws,” she shrugged this aside. “He has my blood; what do I care for the name?”

“Ah.” He fell silent, thinking; then raised his chin defiantly. “That’s our sticking point, then. I could agree to Scotland being yours, if it stayed in the family – by, yes, the laws of men; those are the laws we have. But you would unite the two crowns of the Isles; and then Norway would be overshadowed. How hard is it, even now, for us to match England, both the Rampant Lions together? Let those two crowns lie on one man’s head, and there would be no stopping him.”

“So much the better,” she shrugged uncaringly, “if that man is my son.”

“Well then. Bring your twenty thousand votes, and drive me from these hills, if you can. For I’ll not stand aside otherwise.”





Royal sibling rivalry: Gilpatrick and Agnes. Note Agnes’s trait of Ambition.

Outside Aberdeen Castle, Scotland

June 8th, 1121

Morning

If Agnes did have twenty thousand men, she wasn’t showing them all at once; Gilpatrick estimated no more than fifteen thousand on the lower ridge opposite his position. That still left his army outnumbered, three to two; and he had to keep watch against a sortie by Morgan’s men, holding their ancestral castle against both invaders. Morgan’s best chance was for Agnes to drive Gilpatrick from the field; the English army could not long sustain a siege in this picked-over countryside, and would have to chance an assault.

Still, Morgan’s remaining men were not numerous; Gilpatrick’s main worry this morning was his sister’s army. Three to two were unpleasant odds, though numbers did not tell all the tale. He was relieved to see that his conjecture of the day before had been correct: Much of the English army was in grey wool, sunlight glinting only from spearheads and knives, not gleaming on mail and helmets as it did in his ranks. In terms of men who fought for a living and not for a campaign, the numbers were not so uneven; and the Norse army had only to hold the high ground, not to attack. There was rough ground to his front, hindering the English cavalry; his flanks were covered by stakes and breastworks, dug the night before. The position wasn’t as strong as a stone-built castle wall, but Gilpatrick would not have cared, himself, to lead an army forced to attack it.

It seemed nobody on the other side cared to, either; there was movement in their ranks, but no sign of imminent attack. Gilpatrick squinted, wishing for the sharp eyes of his youth. They were bringing up – archers? No great threat at this range, although there did seem to be an ungodly lot of them. There was no need to give orders: His men knew what to do, and those who had bows were already sending arrows winging across the valley. One or two even found targets, and men fell on the other ridge. The air was still enough that Gilpatrick could hear the screams, if faintly; then a shout of command, in a good carrying battlefield voice: “All together – let the wild geese fly!”

A thousand shafts whistled across the valley, and Gilpatrick’s eyes widened. It was like something out of a tale, as though an army really could darken the sun with its arrows – and even before the vast flight reached its peak, another was on the way. Although he bore axe and shield like most of his men, he had not expected to be in personal danger today; but now he felt his scrotum trying to draw up into his torso, and swallowed back an unpleasant metallic taste. He went to one knee, holding up his shield; the Norse ranks rippled as the men of the shield wall followed his example. The linden wood was light in his arms, although he knew that it would grow heavy as Satan’s sins in any extended combat. He still wished it heavier. Arrows whistling down from such a height – the first flight struck, and his fears were confirmed. Two slim arrowheads punched through his shield, which shivered in his hands as though a berserk out of legend had hit it with an axe. Both missed his arm; but that was luck. Chisel points, like nothing he’d seen before, quivered mere inches from his face. A glance along the ridge confirmed his sudden fears. The narrow points struck through mail as though his men were so many unarmoured peasants. Men were down, clutching at arms to which shields were suddenly nailed, or at thighs suddenly pierced right through the mail and spurting blood. Not very many, true – but another flight of shafts was already whistling down, and two more were in the air.

Gilpatrick’s instinct was to hunker down and hope for the best; but he forced himself to think through his sudden panic. The English couldn’t have infinite supplies of arrows – but no, they’d have brought enough to win one battle, his sister was not such a fool as to bring a new weapon and not make it decisive. He couldn’t rely on their running out. His own archers were nowhere near numerous enough to reply properly, although they were shooting back for what they were worth – better than sitting down and doing nothing, perhaps, if only for the feeling of doing something to control your fate. He could order a retreat behind the ridge, where the English couldn’t see to aim – but then they would simply advance across the valley and shoot down at them, and it would be all the same. Or, worse, his army would dissolve into panic. No, retreat was an option of last resort; staying on the ridge to be shot was insane; that left – attack? Into the arrows coming down like rain? Hopeless, hopeless – but wait. If it were done quickly – and his mind suddenly leapt to the Scottish lairds who had risen to his banner. Cousins of a sort, but that was irrelevant now; the point was that their fighting tails were mounted and armoured. Poor imitations of English chivalry, perhaps; the Lowlands did not have much good grazing for heavy warhorses. But they were all the cavalry he had – Norway was still worse for horses, and even had it not been, he could not have brought many in longships – and they were armed to the teeth and, better still, armoured. If they charged, quickly, and got in among the enemy archers, they could wreak havoc enough among unarmoured men. They just had to get there.

It was a desperate plan, but all he had. Fighting the urge to dig into the grass as another whistling flight came down around him, he instead rose and ran to where Patrick stood. The rich Lothian lands – the heart of the MacRaghnall domains, in a sense, King Malcolm’s gift to Ragnvald – had brought forth almost five hundred mounted men; and Albany to the north had nearly as many.





The MacRaghnall lairds: Dukes of Lothian and Albany.

“Patrick!” he shouted. “Get your men together, charge those archers! Get in among them and you can kill half of them, break their spirit – get back here before the English can react – win the battle at a stroke!”

Patrick stared at him, wide-eyed, close to panic. “Across that ground? You’re mad!”

“I’ll lead the charge myself! Just give me your horse!”

“Get your own damn horse! Nobody’s charging into that!”

Gilpatrick gritted his teeth. Patrick’s men were loyal to the Duke of Lothian, not to the King who was, after all, Over the Water; they wouldn’t follow him if their laird didn’t move.

“I’ll make you Duke of Galloway!” he promised desperately. There was long bad blood between the Scots MacRaghnalls and their western neighbours. It meant another campaign to drive the McFergus lairds from their lands, risk and expense and endless, bloody skirmishing in the doubtful western hills – but that was a long-term problem, and he had a battle to win right now. Patrick looked suddenly doubtful and interested, gauging the ground between them and the English again. His jaw clenched in decision; but before he could draw his sword, another of the thrice-cursed flights of arrows came down. Two of them struck Patrick, one nailing his arm to his torso, the other spanging off his helmet. Men and horses screamed, and the moment was lost. Without a word, Patrick turned his horse about; his cousin Lachlan followed, and their men, and in a minute Gilpatrick’s cavalry, local support, and left flank were all gone.

He stared after them for perhaps five heartbeats, at a loss; but there was clearly no bringing them back. He would have to try retreating his army down off the ridge – he could re-form the line just below it, and drive the English archers away wherever they appeared. It was even more desperate than the cavalry charge that had just disappeared, since the English were no fools and would cover their archers with their own heavy infantry; but he had no better ideas. Perhaps he could think of one if only he could get out of the arrow storm.

As he ran back towards his men, though, he saw that it was hopeless: The left end of the line was already following the cavalry. It wasn’t a panicked rout, the hirdsmenn were veterans and knew what would happen if they simply ran, but they were very definitely retiring. What had been a cohesive army five minutes before was breaking into its constituent parts: Small bands of men who knew and trusted each other, men from the same farm or town or chief’s retinue. Most of them would likely make it back to their ships, the English cavalry could not easily pursue over this ground, but Gilpatrick no longer had an army.

“Fuck Scotland“, he panted as he ran; let Agnes have it, then, cowardly kinsmen and all, and welcome to it. It was his life, now, and every man for himself – well, no. His personal guards, he saw with a stab of pride, were standing where he had put them, at what used to be the center of the line. So, there was still such a thing as loyalty to one’s salt. Ibrahim, their captain, came to meet him. “Sire. Perhaps we should fight another day?”

That was as close as Ibrahim would allow himself to come to suggesting retreat; Gilpatrick felt sure that if he ordered it, the man would dig in his heels and die where he stood, or charge the English army alone. But there was no point in wasting such loyalty. He nodded sharply. “Yes. Back to the ships. In good order, mind, we’ll all die if we break up.”

Ibrahim nodded, relief on his face – a man whose life was loyalty could still hope to live. “Right!” he shouted. “Three steps backwards, and mind it’s only three!” The hirdsmenn stumbled backwards in unison. Some stumbled and fell, and some of those did not get up again; the arrows were still killing. Nonetheless they stopped after the three steps; Gilpatrick saw men bending down to pick up wounded comrades, and felt his heart swell even in the midst of horror. Then Ibrahim stumbled with an arrow through his knee, and Gilpatrick got an arm under his shoulder before he could fall. “Another three steps,” he roared; “and mind we don’t leave anyone for the English vultures!” Three steps at a time they retreated, until at last they were in the shelter of the ridge. Even so the arrows sought them out; but they were unaimed now.

“Form up! Quick step, back to the ships!”

Gilpatrick threw a quick glance over his shoulder as they retreated. The red-on-gold Lion Rampant was still flaring its defiance on Aberdeen Castle. But by the day’s end there would be only one lion in the British Isles.