Shake Loose the Border

by Robert Low

  Instead he stepped forward, grinning out of a mass of grizzled beard. ‘Barthie Kohlhase – it is you there?’

  You can only play the cards you are dealt, in life as in Primero…

  ‘It was this morning, so I am supposing it is still. What brings you here Manolis Voicha?’

  Beaming at having been remembered, Voicha fell into Ewan’s empy seat with a clatter of ironmongery, then eyed up Big Tam and John Dubh, nodding warily to each of them. Batty introduced them; it was all smiles.

  ‘A long time, eh?’ Voicha began; behind him his comrades were negotiating for drink and what food was left. ‘Piedmont, was it not? When our Company fell to pieces.’

  ‘When you all left you mean,’ Batty replied sourly, but Voicha merely broadened the smile in his big square face. When he hauled off his cap, grizzled curls sprang up.

  ‘Well, you were done by then, Barthie. Drunk most of the time and even when you were not you were taking contracts that chased Captain-General Maramaldo at the expense of profit.’

  He cocked his head sideways. ‘I hear he is in this land. Did you meet him? If so – is he dead? I imagine one of you would be.’

  ‘Where are you headed?’ Batty countered and Voicha shrugged.

  ‘South. Carlisle, where the Company of Theodore Luchisi is assembling. Fewer than we were but still to the fore. I hear we are bound for further south still, to fight rebels on behalf of the new young king.’

  Batty had thought Luchisi was dead in Piedmont. It had been a vicious struggle between France and Spain, barely noticed by Batty save through a haze of wine and worse. In the end, he had woken in an empty and looted camp and lurched off, cursing Luchisi, whom he believed had taken over his Company. It took him a few months to realise the truth, but he’d heard Luchisi had died of fever or ague or plague and considered it only the due of such a treacherous bastard.

  Voicha did not hang round long; Ewan came back and stood over his seat, reclaiming the great two-handed sword from Big Tam and leaning on it. Voicha eventually pretended that excusing himself and joining his own was his idea; Batty wished he would leave off calling him ‘Barthie Kohlhase’ in every effusive farewell sentence, but he suffered it.

  He had no relief, all the same. There were faces trying hard not to look at him and one in particular that he recognised – a weather-worn mask of sleekit, white lines fretting the sides of the eyes and showing what colour it had once been before wind and woodsmoke got to it. His hair straggled untidily to the shoulders and was gone from the top of his head entire. He had a bowl out of which he spooned gruel and his grizzled moustaches dripped; he did not use the other hand to wipe them clean all the same – that one never moved from protecting the fat pack next to him.

  Needle Tam the peddlar. He had silk thread, good needles, ribbons, buttons, geegaws and other joys for women in that pack – but the true secret was what he carried from the English Wardens to the Scots Names and back again.

  And he knows me, Batty thought. He was there when Blind Dog Pyntle emptied out the bag of left arms I had cut from Armstrongs and sent to Hollows as a dire message. The owners had been left tied to trees by the one arm, but two had died and the rest walked around as a shrieking reminder of Batty Coalhouse’s vicious.

  Later in the night, the doors were barred, the innkeeper and ostlers and women dragged themselves off to sleep and the rest nudged each other for space closest to the fire without actually falling in it. Batty tried to look and not be seen looking, particularly for Armstrongs. There was a fearsome tally of Armstrongs laid out by me in the pursuit of the rights of wee Mintie Henderson of Powrieburn, he thought.

  It seemed a different age, but it rose up and swirled like smoke from the fire. It did not surprise Batty, raising his head in the night to look around like a questing owl, to find Needle Tam was missing.

  * * *

  She watched from the tower merlons, right up on the crow-stepped gables and slated roof. Watched them load a body into the latticed cage, to be hauled up and left to rot down to bone as a message; she did not see who it had been and was glad of that, at least. She was not entirely sure the occupant had been completely dead when he was hauled up and abandoned.

  Mickle Anthone laughed at something Clem said and then looked up at her, as if he’d known she’d been there all along; which might be true, she thought and shivered. All her husband’s old retainers had been quietly scoured out of Blackscargil and she had no-one now she could rely on. Yet there had been a time when she hoped – prayed – for better.

  She waited for Clem to come up to the room below, then went down to meet him. She said his name and waited, but he was staring out of the unshuttered slit; it was cold and snowing and somewhere came the sounds of music, loud voices, laughter and the smell of cooking.

  There would be a Christ Mass feast in the big hall inside the barmkin, which had once been a byre until Clem had it cleared and cleaned. Now it was a place where his retainers slept – save for tonight, when it would be the feasting hall of some great chief.

  ‘Must you hang that up?’ she asked and he turned, saying nothing. ‘It’s a boy and still living.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she said.

  ‘He was an enemy. Now he is not.’

  ‘What of the old man with one arm whom you scourged? Is he an enemy? The crippled one?’

  ‘I let you talk to me the way you want,’ he answered, ‘up to a point. And not in front of the others. Best if you stay in the top of the tower here when I am gone.’

  ‘If you say I stay, I stay,’ she answered and her tone was mild – but her eyes held his and hung on to them. ‘Are you sure I will? No-one can be that sure, not even you.’

  He took off the mask, easy as a pull on one of the trailing ties. The ruined face confronted her and she knew he was using it like a club. She let him be disappointed in how it had failed and wanted so much to tell him why that she had to clamp her lips tight until she could speak without betrayal.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked eventually and he frowned.

  ‘No business of yours.’

  ‘Will there be anything there like a minister or a priest you can gather up?’

  ‘There might be, but if not, what of it?’

  ‘Then I will leave,’ she said. ‘Return to Netherby as a widow.’

  He took her arm, high up on the muscle and, despite herself, she gasped at the pain of his squeeze.

  ‘Tomorrow I take the cripple to where he must go. When I return I will find you here and I will find the men in the cages still hanging. I will bring a man of God. Or I will not.’

  His mutilated face was close to hers now, so that she could see the slight bubble in the still raw-looking cavity form and burst with the passion of his breathing, even though most of it was through his mouth.

  ‘Is that understood?’

  She nodded. He started to fit on the mask and she went close to him, almost lip to lip, feeling the heat of him as she knew he felt hers. She tied the mask at the back of his red head, staring unblinkingly into his eyes and the mask.

  I did that, she thought. Me. Eliza Graham of Netherby, not shrinking in a corner now. Not pressed into a wall. Not spatchcocked on a table.

  Chapter Six

  Christ Mass Day 1548 – Carlisle

  Batty told them of Needle Tam and what his missing would mean. ‘They will come at us,’ he said flatly. ‘Needle Tam will spread the word of me as far as he can – it is a mercy to us that he is too mean to own a pack-pony never mind a decent hobby so his is the distance he travels on his auld legs and with a muckle pack on his back. But he will know where to go to find Armstrongs.’

  ‘Is this not close to your own kin?’ Big Tam asked, racking up the girth as he kneed the recalcitrant hobby in the belly, to stop it puffing out and loosening the strap. It tried to bite him and he cuffed its nose, off-hand and gentle. ‘The Grahams, isn’t it?’

  Batty nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aye
, they might hear of it too. They might not. And even if they do they might do nothing – kin is too strong a word for me and them.’

  They rode through a bird-silent land where trees, stripped bare, seemed to crouch and shiver in the slicing wind; the road was patched with snow and empty of travellers; it was the day of Christ’s birth and distant bells marked it; anyone of sense stayed cloistered and filled themselves with what decent meat and drink they had.

  They came down through Graitna, a place of closed doors and huddled buildings, shuttered blindly. The only sign of life in it was the border post, where armed men stamped and blew and looked warily at armed riders. Well they might, Batty thought, being a mere custom post for taking tithes from drovers. Yet they are now the only sojers between the Scots and Carlisle.

  Grey of Wilton’s writ got them through without fuss and they skirted the Solway sands, where the wind blew skeins of snow and grit up like smoke. Here was where Auld Nan’s cottage was, Batty remembered. Somewhere ower that headland; he shivered at the memory of it, at taking Mintie to it and all the ruin that had fallen out of it since. No good deed goes unpunished…

  Ewan grew uneasy over the mood and the bleakness. ‘Give us a song,’ he demanded of John Dubh, who cleared his throat, spat and then launched out loudly enough to have Fiskie throw up his head with alarm.

  ‘Last night I dreamed a drearie dream,

  Abune the Isle of Skye,

  I saw a dead man win a fight,

  And I think that man was I.’

  ‘By God, John Dubh, I was thinking of something with a jig to it,’ Ewan growled. ‘To lift the moment as it were.’

  ‘O I forbid you, maidens a’

  That wear gowd on your hair,

  To come or go by Carterhaugh.

  For young Tam Lin is there.’

  The sick crow of it made everyone grimace. ‘That’s more of the style I seek,’ Ewan said dryly, ‘but a decent and true tune would be good.’

  ‘Then sing it yerself,’ Batty answered tersely and hunched himself into his cloak. They rode on in silence, down the long hissing-wind road and across the Eden to the Ricardgate of Carlisle as the day dulled down to grey and the trees seemed to swallow their own shadows. They saw no-one of note, but Batty itched.

  The gate was shut and the guards gone; from the top of the gate-tower a blur of heads told them to ‘bugger off’. Batty could hardly blame the gate-guards; it was the feast of Christ Mass and the law said the town gates would be closed at dusk. It was barely three-quarters through the day but already so dark that the rampart walkers were sparking up braziers and torches. That would be good enough for folk wanting off to enjoy good food and decent drink to call curfew and close up.

  The Scotch Gate Tavern was nearby and surprisingly empty, but Patey Graham the innkeeper knew Batty well enough and explained it while the ostler boys hurried off with the horses.

  ‘Folk knew the gates would close early, so they forsook drink and good food here for what lies inside. Besides – it’s a quarter-day and they needs hand ower their rents afore it ends and while the collectors are this side of sober.’

  He was a man built like a slab-side of beef hanging on a hook, not one who needed a dunter to help with the rowdy, but he was morose with lost traffic on a day when he’d gone to a lot of trouble to provide hospitality.

  Batty thought he’d be brighter now that four customers had arrived to help eat at least one of the pies he’d had made, but Patey put him right on it.

  ‘Aye, I have good food and decent drink,’ he answered softly, ‘but the word is out on you – I had Willie Armstrong in here with a brace of no good out of Mangerton and I am sure they will be back. Besides – those with you are bare-legged skirt-wearers far too Scotch for them around here.’

  ‘I have had better welcomes,’ Batty answered tersely, but the others shrugged it off and concentrated on the Christ Mass pie with pigeon and goose and pork in it. There were some smaller – and cheaper – humble pies, filled with the off-cuts of deer slain for the rich folks, but Ewan and the others opted for a big one. There was ale and even wine, so a forced night outside Carlisle’s walls looked like being a decent affair, even if they were the only custom in the place.

  There were two women serving and half-hoping at least one of the younger men would purchase their wares for the money in it – and the other half hoping they could go at least one day without having to. Batty nodded to them and sat with his back to the wall facing the door; the women ignored an old, big-bellied man with one arm.

  He sat that way for a while, eating slowly and drinking. After an hour or so of this, three men entered the tavern, paused briefly at the door, two of them looking his way, as if in confirmation of what they had been told. Then all three headed toward the nearest board and pulled benches up, calling for ale.

  John Dubh, his mouth hidden by a wedge of pie, looked sideways at Batty and mumbled: ‘What think you of them?’

  Not much, was what Batty thought – especially when they all stood up at once and strolled towards his table. Patey Graham saw it and called out, his voice was loud in the quiet room. ‘Nae trouble, for the honour of the day.’

  The men ignored it. The one who was clearly the leader stood in front of Batty with the others left and right. He was in middle years, his face bog-brown where it could be seen through the veil of hair and beard; he had a jack of plates which made Batty conscious of the loss of his own and he had a matchlock pistol shoved in the belt of his breeks, the slow match smouldering.

  ‘I am Sim Armstrong of Whithaugh,’ he said and nodded left and right. ‘These are my kin, Dand and Davey’s John.’ He said it to Batty, who felt his bowels do a slow, cold turn. Whithaugh. He had done a deal of damage to that place and Sim Armstrong had eyes that showed how he was not afraid of killing, though Batty doubted he had done a lot of it. He doubted any of them were here because they’d been sent; they came because Needle Tam had told them and they looked to bring Batty’s head back to Whithaugh in triumph.

  Dand was an older man, short and with a belly that poked out from under the jack. He had a grey beard and grey eyes that told Batty he was unhappy with all this, no matter how tough he was acting in front of the others.

  Davey’s John was a younger man, sweating and shifting from foot to foot like an over-excited hound. Batty knew this was a youngling who had done nothing much and craved the attention and notoriety of killing the likes of Batty. He was too young and too stupid to see how his life would end.

  ‘You are Batty Coalhouse,’ Sim said. ‘We have a reckoning with you.’

  Sim knew this wouldn’t intimidate the likes of Batty Coalhouse, a man whom he had never met but whose reputation had been with him forever, but was taking a chance anyway. There are four of them and only three of us, Sim thought, which fact Needle Tam had failed to mention when he told them where Batty Coalhouse was. Here was the slouching beast and it could only be better for Sim if the man’s friends ran off.

  ‘Our quarrel is not with you,’ he added hopefully to them and one of the men – a real big bugger he noticed uneasily – gave a short mirthless laugh.

  Batty sat motionless and stared back, then looked around the room to see Patey Graham, cudgel now in hand. The women were wisely elsewhere.

  ‘Ware that slow match,’ he said, nodding at Sim. ‘It is too close to your serk and your ma will get shrill if she has to mend the hole.’

  Davey’s John broke in, his voice high and tight with excitement. He moved closer to Batty almost touching him across the scarred board table. ‘Mayhap you could just get the fuck up on your hind legs, come outside and face your justice.’

  Batty looked up at him and Davey’s John tried hard not to look away but could not lock the gaze; finally, he looked down at the table, clearly embarrassed and took a step back. Batty moved his eyes back to the leader.

  ‘Whithaugh,’ he said. ‘I have had dealings with that place afore.’

  ‘Dealings is it?’ Sim spat back. ‘A
wee word for the slaughter of the entire of the place, from the heidman doon.’

  ‘Clearly no’ all of them died and those who did kept coming at me. Like you do. Who is heidman there these days then?’

  Sim floundered a little; this was not the way the conversation was meant to go, as he had seen it in his head before entering the place.

  ‘Francie Armstrong,’ he replied and Batty nodded as if he’d known, which was a lie. He had never heard of Francie Armstrong and fancied he had been brought in from outside, since the entire Armstrong heidmen at Whithaugh had died at Batty’s hand, one way or another.

  Davey’s John whipped out a knife, so fast it had to be something he had practised every other day – but it was still too slow. Big Tam rose up and Davey’s John shrieked at the crushing grip that ground knife hilt and the bones of his hand together. He was struggling to get free when something dark and huge arrived at the corner of his eye and blew his sense away. Big Tam let him fall, massaging his fist.

  Ewan moved almost at the same time, while Dand floundered, taken by surprise for all that he should not have been, given the circumstances. He had time to shout and half-drag out his dagger before Ewan hit him between the eyes with the hilt of his own. Dand collapsed like a mammet with cut strings.

  Sim pulled his pistol and found he couldn’t. He tugged and wrestled, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He slowed and finally gave up his struggle and opened his eyes. He found himself staring down the hexagonal barrel of a monstrous dagg – it had an axe head as part of the handle, he saw, and he raised his trembling hands.

  ‘I nivver fired…’

  ‘Pull out your pistol,’ Batty said coldly, his spring to upright still rocking the table; Sim started to pop sweat.

  ‘I nivver pulled on ye.’

  Batty gave him a hard, weary look. ‘The hook of the pan cover is stuck on your breeks. Take your time and remove it, else the match might touch it off and blaw your bags to bits. Besides – your serk is starting to smoke and if it catches flame…’