Shake Loose the Border

by Robert Low

  Will stood a long time, staring into the dark until he shivered, a sudden spasm. Then he went to wake Ewan and John Dubh.

  * * *

  Batty jerked awake, appalled at himself. The moon was up, the moss rolled away like a sea, studded with a twist of tree leaning away from the sharp hissing wind. Yet night birds were out hunting and calling, soft as snake breath.

  He was shamed and afraid of having fallen asleep, if it could be called sleep. He felt feverish and found he had one of the daggs in his hand, plucked from the horse-holster by reflex; he laid the cold barrel against his temple and felt the relief on a pounding head.

  The dream-memory was a strange one, back when he had come to join the rest of his family in their war against Saxony. It was because of the family at Micklegate, he thought and all Will had been saying.

  * * *

  For a moment Ned’s head shook uncontrollably, like a white thistle in the wind; Batty realised his affliction had gotten worse over the years and mentioned it, gently.

  ‘As did Bella’s,’ Ned answered. ‘Until it killed her dead.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Sweating sickness,’ Ned answered shortly, which puzzled Batty for though it was deadly, the Sweats took you in hours not years. Ned shook his head and waved his arms when Batty expressed his puzzlement.

  ‘She had no’ been right for some time,’ he answered. ‘The Sweats was just the finality of matters.’

  He had looked at Batty then, with the sideways slyness of the drunk.

  ‘You and she were sweet once and she left a word for you, Batty,’ he said. ‘For a time if we met and she was gone from the world.’

  She had left a few words, well remembered by even a sot like Ned.

  Look on me kindly – and leave old sins to die of old sins.

  Batty had no idea what the second part meant, but was unable to look on her at all, for Ned would not permit it.

  ‘Best leave your sight of her untouched by what plague does,’ he declared and Batty, who had looked on the very vomit of Hell and remained unfazed by it, was forced to agree to Ned’s wishes; he had never heard of the Sweats being so disfiguring but he knew more than Ned thought he did and honoured the old man’s wishes.

  The dream ended as he stood by the lichgate, watching her lowered into the ground of a Calais churchyard.

  ‘Buried on English soil,’ Ned had declared, still drunk and showing no signs of sobering soon. ‘Which I will defend.’

  * * *

  He rode up and over the swells of the moss, a rolling sea of tussocks and whin, spattered with the odd lonely rowan and stands of luminous birch. There were thicker copses, too, drenched in the last of the snow, which the wind trailed off like mist. All the way along it he fought to stay awake, fought the hag of dreams.

  He found the Mutton Pot easily enough, but finding the way in was never an option unless you knew it, though he saw several that might be. They were half-seen trails that meandered down the side of the bowl-shaped land into thick clutches of leafless trees like claws for the unwary.

  All those trails would find a way to the centre, Batty thought, though you’d wander a long time and be tracked by people who stayed there and knew it all by heart. Those same people, he reckoned, would not want folk entering by the porter’s gate, all the same, so he slid off Fiskie, left him tied to the weight of the reins and stumped down a way, to where he could crouch unseen.

  He was there until the moon died and the first silver of dawn smeared the sky. Then three riders appeared, riding out of the dark shadows, up and over the crest, heading towards him. When they dismounted a good way off, he let out his breath and got it in the cup of his hand lest they see the betrayal of smoke.

  After a while, as the cold slithered insidiously into Batty’s bones, locking his joints with pain, all three men mounted and rode back. There will be another soon enough, Batty thought. Three at dawn, one or two later in the day, mayhap another at night. Not a task any of them relishes.

  Well there you are, he told himself. How do you like it now, Batty, avenging angel without a fiery sword? It will not get any better.

  He fumbled out some slices of ham and bread, sipped some decent ale, for he hadn’t eaten in a time and, if truth be told, was alarmed about how his stomach had shrunk. Never a good sign when a man with a belly like a galleon in full sail should suddenly lose it and never notice.

  When he was done he licked his fingers and went back to Fiskie, working the stiffness out of his knees and fingers. He fed him a handful of oats and watered him out of his burgonet, then mounted up. He checked the daggs, touched the hilt of his backsword, made a riffle of fingers along the snugged Brothers in the apostle bandolier.

  He was ready.

  He let Fiskie amble out into the open and then nudged her into a firmer walk heading up to the crest of the little ridge where he had last seen men. He had an idea there was one now who had eyes on him, so he wanted to appear open and slightly stupid.

  Now it comes, he said to himself, slouching in the saddle, his shoulders moving with the gait of the horse. A rider relaxed, climbing a trail, in no hurry and off guard. He was about half-way up when the other rider appeared, fifty paces ahead and above him. Batty pretended not to notice until the man called out: ‘Stop there.’

  Batty stopped and squinted at a brown man on a brown horse with a furriner accent thick as clotted cream.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ the man said ambling his horse a little closer. ‘I said, no, it cannot be. That man rides too easy for one with stripes all over his back.’

  ‘Oh, I got used to them quick enough. Came back with some friends and blew in the doors of The Scar. You mayhap noticed.’

  ‘Everyone noticed,’ the man replied, his voice hardening. Batty shrugged.

  ‘Powerful what you can do with friends. We can be friends if you care for it. I have some decent ale. Would that work for you? What are you called?’

  ‘Vasari is my name. You have too many weapons about you for drinking ale,’ the man said. He was at ease now, for he could not see anyone else.

  ‘For protection,’ Batty answered lightly, showing teeth. ‘No sense in getting off on the wrong foot before I can ask you a boon.’

  This was interesting and strange; the man cocked his head but his voice was suspicious.

  ‘It seems we are good friends after all,’ he said, ‘that you can ask a boon. What is it?’

  ‘You are right,’ Batty said. ‘As a friend, I want you to go to Clem and tell him Batty Coalhouse is coming. If he plans to run again I will know of it and burn him out of this place.’

  ‘Oho,’ Vasari said. ‘Perhaps I will stay and enjoy your decent ale and send one of the men hidden behind me.’

  Batty shook his head. ‘I have been here a while, seen less than a handful come and go and now there is you – what happened to get you this shit, standing out in the cold all night? And alone, too.’

  ‘You are certain of all that?’ the man asked, his face a laugh. ‘Would you bet your life on it?’

  ‘Life or Primero – you play the hand dealt.’

  Vasari spread his hands and widened his smile. ‘This no kind of talk between friends. I will go and tell Clem. You wait here, right?’

  Batty nodded. ‘I will be here.’

  The man reined round and rode up to the crest of the ridge, turned, waved and smiled, then vanished over it. Batty drew out the axe-handled dagg and waited for the inevitable.

  The inevitable came hurtling back over the crest at a full-sretch gallop, leaning low on the horse so that the mane whipped his face, leaning to one side, away from Batty’s pistol hand.

  It was in Batty’s head that Vasari was riding too fast, aiming to get right round behind him and come up on him that way; then he saw the drawn blade, a curve of wicked smiling sabre and behind it the face, silently screaming.

  Now we see how I stand before God, Batty said and levelled the dagg, squeezed hard and waited. Vasari was twenty fee
t away when the affair went off in a long spear of flaring light and a horrendous blast of sound. Vasari went backwards off the horse’s rump, while the mount screeched and threw its head, dancing sideways in fear and confusion.

  Fiskie, with the blast and flame coming from between his own ears, did a squeal and a half-hearted buck, but nothing more. Finest horse ever, Batty thought vehemently, though he offered an apologetic prayer to his long-dead predecessor, The Saul.

  The smoke shredded, harsh and eye-stinging so that Batty saw Vasari, flat on his back and staring at the sky. He rode Fiskie over and looked down, seeing the dark stain spreading from his side.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked and Vasari opened one eye and scorned him with it; his arm was tight against his side where the ball had torn through, ripping away his fancy belt, part of his chemise and a chunk of the jack. Plates stuck out like broken bones.

  ‘What did you load that with?’ he managed to gasp, while blood pinked on his lips and a bubble formed and burst. Lung shot, Batty thought, levering himself out of the saddle.

  ‘Something for killing vermin,’ he replied coldly. ‘I will fetch your horse and help you on it. You have someone back in that scrub who can sew you up?’

  Vasari licked his bloody lips. ‘I will never make it.’

  ‘Of course you will, once you are up. Here…’

  He fetched the horse and helped the man on to it; he sat like a half-empty bag of flour, hunched up with glazing eyes.

  ‘Well, here’s what you should say when you get there. Tell Nebless Clem that Batty is coming. You hear what I say? Batty is coming to give him stroke for stroke. Not for what he did to me, but for the wee girl-child at Micklegate. He will know.’

  ‘I had no part in that,’ Vasari answered, gasping and blowing blood bubbles.

  Batty turned the horse to face the right direction. ‘Listen friend, I am thinking you had better go there quickly.’

  He slapped the rump and watched the horse go up the slope, the man wobbling on its back. He hoped he would make it, but in the end it would not matter for nothing would save him.

  If it all went well, Nebless Clem would send out men to pick up my trail, he thought. He will need a dozen and if he has much more than that I am the King of Faerie.

  He turned Fiskie, who was still shaking the ringing out of his ears. Batty patted him fondly and nudged him on, singing softly.

  ‘The steed that my true love rides,

  Is lighter than the wind,

  Wi siller he is shod before,

  Wi burning gowd behind.’

  * * *

  He lay on his back, staring up at the rough plank roof and then at Clem Selby and Trin, one of his kin. Trin had just told Clem that the man was dying and Clem wanted to know what he had said. Again.

  Vasari could hear others moving round about in the dimly lit partitions built under the arching of scrub but he had no strength to turn his head. No desire for it, either. He heard Trin say he was dying and he knew he was dying and the sun was coming up on a new day he would never get to see out.

  I should have ridden hard past him, he thought. Turned and hacked at him before he got the monstrance dagg working. Or shot him with my own dagg minute I saw him. Or got off before the crest and used a latchbow from hiding. He wished he had done it differently, wished he could begin again.

  He saw Clem looking at him, the leather mask impassive, the mouth beneath it hardly moving as he spoke. He saw Batty Coalhouse and that huge dagg with an axe in the handle, the barrel pointing at him and he thinking then that he might just make it, that it would misfire…

  ‘He says,’ Trin said wearily, ‘Batty Coalhouse is coming. Vengeance for his striping and for the whipping of a girl.’

  The last he said with accusation, for he had been against it at the time, but Clem turned that mask of a face on him and he shut up, as he had done then.

  ‘For a bloody back and a dead girl?’ Clem asked and shook his head. ‘Who has the grievance here? Man helped steal my wife, my prisoner and my tower.’

  Clem thought about it a little longer. ‘Send folk to find him.’

  Trin rubbed his chin, finding tangles in the beard there. ‘There are a dozen ways he could have gone…’

  ‘Send men for all of them.’

  ‘You’d need a dozen.’

  ‘Then send them. We have trackers – send them.’

  We have a score of men left, Trin wanted to say. Only that many now and most of those looking to run out if Nebless Clem’s luck doesn’t change. And that he starts treating them with some respect. There were a dozen who were kin and the rest were like the dying Vasari, defected furrin-fighters looking to get warm, eat well and score some coin.

  ‘We are supposed to be attacking the tower. Taking it back…’

  Clem glared. ‘We do that when I say.’

  ‘All this for a one-armed old man?’

  ‘Dangerous as canker,’ Clem replied, chewing a nail. Then his head lifted like a dog fox scenting love on the wind.

  ‘Did that Will fellow not say something about a woman who held this Batty in thrall? That he did whatever she wished, no matter how foul?’

  Trin felt uneasy, but nodded. ‘Mintie Henderson of Powrieburn. Who is well connected to the Hepburns and the Grahams.’

  If we fail to find Batty, Clem thought, then we will stop charging ower the moss in search of him. Better we find something, a lure he cannot resist. And that will be this Mintie woman.

  The man lying on the platform heard it all, thought it foul but could not bring himself to care overly much. He thought about how this had happened to him, how he was laying here when an hour ago the life had been hot in him and now he was staring at the knot whorls in the roof, wishing he could see the stars, feel the night wind. He wanted to be filled with beef and wine, running his hand over the satin skin of a woman, but he had done it all wrong. Should have spotted the guns on the man, but had only seen him strung up, white-naked, being whipped by Clem Selby.

  Now here he was, his gut opened up to the light. There was no feeling all down that side, none at all. His ma would have soothed him, but she wasn’t here. No-one was. Why are you here alone?

  Trin seemed to notice something and peered. Then took a knee and touched a pulse. He knew Vasari was dead, his eyes open and staring at the next world.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Mutton Pot, later

  Batty withdrew to some high ground overlooking the Mutton Pot, to a place shrouded by ash and downy birch coming into leaf. He fed Fiskie a handful or two of his shrinking oats, gave him water and left him to watch as much of the scrub choked bowl of Mutton Pot as he could.

  It was hard toll on Fiskie and himself. You can be rode hard and put away wet for only so long that apologies and excuses no longer cover the agony of aching joints and bad digestion. He looked sideways at the patient horse; we have been to that well too often, he thought.

  Will, he realised, was right in just about every way. I am no assistance to anyone here, just a man who shakes up the Border, which will stay shaken by every Name with a grievance that sets out against me, now that they have the time after the end of Henry’s war. If I left, few would mourn me and those who did would do it with a tinge of relief.

  From his vantage, he watched three men coming up from the Pot, through the dips and over the crests. They rode easy, studying the ground for sign but Batty wasn’t worried, since he had not shuffled anything into existence down that way. Instead he thought about what he would do it they started towards him, though there was no reason for that other than the perfidy of God.

  He could take the reins in his teeth, unshackle a dagg and urge Fiskie into a gallop, coming down on them like some bold cavalier; the truth of it was an old man wasted too thin by the poisons from his whipped back on a horse staggering under the pain of sore joints.

  So he made up his mind, there and then, that he did not care about any of it. He had shot a man not long since and, for the first time in
a long while, regretted it. Not that the man could have been spared once he had committed himself – if he had not been shot off his horse, he’d have done Batty harm.

  But he had loaded the man on his horse and sent him, weaving, on his way with no more thought on it than he needed the dying man to deliver his message before he died. Now he hoped Vasari had died before he did; Will Elliot was right and always had been – Batty Coalhouse needed to be gone from the Borders; sooner or later Clem Selby would die, killed in a raid or destroyed by the snotters and shivering of winter.

  Batty had ridden a little way west, with half a mind to reach Berwick and consider what he did next – mayhap find the nuns, snug in their new home, beg a night or two and ride on to the coast, into France or Germany. Visit Michaelangelo if the old sot was still alive – he laughed at the notion, felt fey and shivered.

  It came as a surprise to him, then, to find three mounted men ahead of him and coming on steadily; he had not thought the ones he saw that determined or clever. Then he thought they would must be three other trackers for Nebless Clem. Then he saw the lead figure raise a hand and wave and knew, with certainty beyond his aged blurred vision, that it was Will Elliot and that, riding on either side, would be Ewan and John Dubh.

  He waited for them to come up and was met by the harsh, violet-ringed eyes and face of Will, was surprised when he spoke.

  ‘Is he dead then? Nebless Clem?’

  Batty shook his head and Will sighed. ‘I had hoped for it, seeing you still alive.’

  ‘Hoped for it,’ Batty repeated, bewildered. ‘Is this the man who keeps telling me to leave the matter alone?’