Angel of Death

1
    O day of wrath, o day of mourning! A common feeling amongst men as the end of the century approached. They talked and gossiped about how, in the year 1299, something terrible would happen to mark the changing of the century. Men pointed to the inclement weather, the failure of crops and the outbreak of war as signs on the dark-edge of the world that the Anti-christ had been born. In the cities and villages Satan and all his imperial army had been seen singing their diabolical matins in the wet dank woods. Men believed Satan walked. His time had come and no more so than in Scotland, where King Edward I of England had led a huge army of foot and horse to bring his rebellious subjects to their knees.
    If the devil did walk and if he did lurk in the darkness then surely he must have taken up his throne in the dark, wooded slopes overlooking the English camp outside Berwick. There, wrapped in a brown woollen cloak, seated on a trunk in his purple silk war pavilion, Edward of England was bitterly regretting the evil he had done that day. He poured himself a large brimming cup of blood-red Gascon wine, and sipping it while he half listened to the sounds of his camp, the calls of guards, the faint neigh of. horses, the crunch of mailed feet on the crushed bracken. He was cold. A wind had swept in from the grey, cruel North Sea and, despite all his attempts to keep warm, Edward of England shivered. He wanted to go down on his knees and confess to his creator his terrible sin. Cain's sin, the sin of anger, of murder; and yet he meant well. He had spent twenty-four years of his reign attempting to bring order to these islands, crushing the Irish, bringing the Welsh to heel and, at last, conquering the Scots. Had he not intervened and given them a king, their own noble, John Balliol? Yet what had happened? Edward felt like squeezing the cup in his hands. Balliol, conspiring with his enemies abroad, Philip of France and the King of Norway, had risen in rebellion. Edward, swearing terrible oaths, had taken his huge force north and crossed the border, sacking the priory of Coldstream and everything else in his way until he came to Berwick. He hated that town on the Scottish eastern march, full of fat burgesses who looked after their own concerns, revelling in its nickname of the Alexandria of the West.
    Its citizens had seen Edward's fleet at sea and the huge force of English, Welsh and Irish: the lines of bowmen, the serried ranks of men-at-arms, the colour and panoply of his cavalry. Yet those same burgesses of Berwick had refused him entry, saying that their fealty was to John Balliol, the rebellious king. Edward had immediately ordered an all-out assault, screaming in rage when he heard how his fleet had been driven back and his soldiers were dying in their hundreds in the ditches under the walls of this rebellious city. Finally, his own nephew had received his death wound, a huge quarrel from a crossbow smashing into his unprotected face and turning it into a screaming bloody pulp. That had been the last straw for Edward. He had mounted his great warhorse Bayard and personally led the charge across the narrow ditch of Berwick and stormed the gate. In the face of such fury the Scots had given way. Once the English had seized the gates, the terrible slaughter had begun. Edward, furious with the rebellious citizens, ordered his soldiers to show no quarter and the day had been given over to sacking the city. Men, women and children were cut down in their hundreds; the wells choked with corpses; the bodies littered the streets like leaves on a windy autumn day. Churches had been sacked and horses stabled there, precious ornaments looted, silken hangings torn down. Children had not been spared; they were knifed, beheaded and impaled on lances. Women in their hundreds were raped before their throats were cut, and then the entire city was put to the torch. Edward had seen it all. A terrible descent into hell as he rode his great, black warhorse along the terror-filled, narrow streets. Eventually, he had seen one of his Irish footmen cut the throat of a woman begging for mercy and Edward had dismounted, muttering, 'Oh no! I did not wish this!' On his knees he had tried to beg God's forgiveness but God had moved away from Edward of England. The king felt it would be useless giving orders for the killing to stop now, for the English had simply run out of people to slay.
    Only one place held out: the Red House owned by Fleming