Shake Loose the Border

by Robert Low

  ‘Not possible now, I am thinking,’ Ewan offered quietly.

  ‘A man came to Netherby,’ John Dubh added and, while Batty looked confused, Will hauled on the reins of his horse.

  ‘We spotted a sheltered place where we can have a fire,’ he said. ‘Let’s go there and I will tell you why Nebless Clem is now deadlier than any canker.’

  It wasn’t far, Will’s hidden place, but all the way there Batty fretted with impatience to find out why Nebless Clem was more dangerous than before. While Ewan made up the fire, Will sat opposite and finally told him.

  A man had arrived at Netherby, staggering and crawling and it was a wonder to everyone who saw that he had made it at all. His back was lashed to ruin and the bone, he was already feverish with the afterclap of shock and the cold.

  He was Thomas Ower The Moss, which was the only name he had since he was Broken from the Hendersons by some heinous misdeed. He had been a Broken man since, running with others of his kind until swept up by Nebless Clem.

  ‘He had refused, or so he claimed,’ Will said, ‘to be part of Clem’s latest plot.’

  He stopped and Batty sat for a while, then sighed.

  ‘Am I to pay for the rest?’

  Will shook his head. ‘Clem is set on capturing Mintie Henderson, in order that you be flushed out to try and free her. He was told you are in thrall to the Mistress of Powrieburn.’

  Batty was rocked for a moment, the others saw his mouth work in astonishment, like a new-landed salmon. Finally he managed to say ‘God’s blood’ and then: ‘We must go there.’

  ‘Not me,’ Will said vehemently. ‘I will never set foot in that garth again.’

  Batty stared at him. ‘Because she has never seen you hirple like a cripple? This, I think, outweighs any vanity.’

  ‘Not vanity,’ Will said miserably. ‘I just could not bear to see her again.’

  ‘We have Netherby on our side,’ Ewan added hastily before matters boiled up more.

  ‘They have sent out trackers,’ John Dubh added. Batty sat while John Dubh put something in a pot and wreathed the area in tasty smells; Batty’s mouth watered. It was a good place, a sheltered dell with running water so the horses could drink when they chose and need only be hobbled. Fiskie did not need even that, Batty thought; he needs the rest. And so do I while I work out what happens now – he was still bemused by the fact of Mintie being dragged into this.

  ‘He will want to catch the place in daylight,’ Batty said, working it out in his head. ‘He will come down on them just after dawn.’

  ‘Why not at night?’ Ewan demanded. ‘Covered by the dark, he could get close…’

  Because Powrieburn is a bastel house, Batty told him, thick-walled with a thick door and an iron yett behind that. You couldn’t burst it in, or smoke them out from the slate roof. Besides, there are roosting ravens which will fly up if disturbed by riders in the dark. And a good dog even if it appeared to be built of several different ones.

  ‘Mintie’s bastel is like the one at Micklegate,’ he explained, ‘which Nebless Clem broke into only because a bairn fretted over her dog and opened the doors.’

  He stopped, seeing the tattered, bloody body. When he looked up, Will was staring back at him; he nodded once.

  ‘That will be the fate of Powrieburn if he gets in.’

  ‘All the more reason for going there,’ John Dubh answered; Will lowered his head.

  ‘I will come close to it. I will fight with you Batty. For the last time.’

  ‘Netherby cannot send men to it – not their lands, not their Name – but they will tell the Hendersons, who will send men to help,’ Batty answered. ‘Clem will never break in.’

  He looked from one to the other. ‘Our job is to stop him ever returning for a second attempt. If he wants to lure Batty Coalhouse out to a fight, I will give him that.’

  ‘It may be a trap,’ Ewan said thoughtfully. ‘It will have the same effect, after all, as having this woman held prisoner. Rather than go to the trouble and blood it would take to break into this Powrieburn and seize the woman and all the feud that would come after.’

  ‘I am aware,’ Batty said sardonically.

  ‘You have a plan?’ John Dubh demanded, ladling something into a bowl.

  ‘Fight. All save for you, who will take Will back to Fife.’

  ‘They will not,’ Will said firmly and smiled sadly. ‘You are not the only one with one foot in Paradise.’

  * * *

  They rode hard and without stopping more than a breath or two. They crossed the Thief Sike and swung north, then swung south to come up on Tinnis Hill from the sheltered side.

  The dark loom of it washed Batty with old memories. He had been ambushed on that innocent looking dome, blasted off his horse and spilled down a drop. Mintie and Will had turned out to find and rescue him and when he looked at Will, he saw he was remembering the same thing. They grinned at each other, rueful, and shivered.

  Ewan and John Dubh knew nothing of the Faerie that hagged Tinnis, so they were unconcerned as the dawn spilled up, all rosy and fired. They tethered the horses and fed and watered them, then stumped to a vantage point and looked down.

  Powrieburn, an ache of old familiar, lay a good gallop away, marked by a spill of smoke that showed the occupants were up, making fires. There were a lot of men slouching about the place, at doors and in the garth. Batty thought he saw Bet’s Annie at one point, but could not be sure.

  ‘The garth and yett are both open,’ Ewan declared and Batty cursed the young eyes that saw what he could not. It was not a surprise; there would be wood to carry in, mulch from the stalls to be got out – you could not constantly be opening and locking two doors.

  But there were two big men on either side, watching and ready; the Hendersons had clearly sent Mintie men to help.

  They sat for a while longer while the morning spread to a dance of loveliness. Oystercatchers swooped, reminding everyone how close they were to the firth at Solway. Larks soared and wood-pigeons called one to the other or argued with the ravens. Those black birds of Powrieburn, Batty thought. Every cry they give reminds me of the first night I arrived, to where the frightened, determined and brave Mintie had come out of Powrieburn to take a message from me. He glanced at Will, sitting with his back to it all; he will recall it too.

  ‘Will ye not keep watch?’

  Will shook his head. He would not look at as much as a stained plank of Powrieburn’s outhouse. Batty shook his head with exasperation.

  ‘Then move to the ither side and watch for riders. Come tell me at once if you see same.’

  He did not say why but neither Ewan nor John Dubh needed an explanation; if this was a good watch-point for Batty, it would also be good for Nebless Clem and his men.

  Batty wanted to see a flurry of riders come down on Powrieburn and veer off when they saw how defended it was. He wanted to see them wheel like birds and scatter. He wanted to know where Nebless Clem was…

  ‘I havna seen a single Faerie,’ John Dubh offered up, sounding offended. Ewan chuckled.

  ‘Well, at least you can tell folk you spent the night on a Faerie hill and had no bad for it.’

  We’re not off it yet, Batty wanted to tell them. He remembered when he had been here before, the storm, the Hen Harrow’s cunning plot to box him in on this very hill. He felt the comforting weight of the axe-handled dagg, which had belonged to the Hen Harrow and which he had not needed once Batty was done with him.

  Now he sat on the hill waiting for another and had no fear of Faerie, or even considered them much. If I hear the tinkle of silvered bells mind, I will soil myself he thought.

  There were no delicate chimes, just the opposite; Will came crushing through the bracken, breathless and afraid.

  ‘A dozen riders,’ he managed. ‘They have dismounted and left horse-holders – the main of them are coming up on us.’

  ‘Riders from the Hendersons?’ Ewan offered. Batty looked at him, pouch-eyed and sour.


  ‘Ye think? Having circled half-way round the Hill to come up on it? Well, you stay and find out for sure, last of the Lovats. When you do, gallop like a tail-fired stirk and see if you can catch me up with the news.’

  ‘I thought we were here to face them off,’ John Dubh growled. ‘To seek out Nebless Clem and finish him.’

  On our own ground, Batty told them. When their numbers don’t outweigh our gallant bravery. They laughed, soft and bitter.

  ‘We head west,’ he added. ‘See if you can keep up with me. If we get divided, make north and then east to Edinburgh and on to Newark’s castle. God willing, we will all meet there.’

  The sun was up and at their back, casting long twisting shadows of them over the tawny land ahead.

  ‘If you see Nebless Clem,’ he added, urging Fiskie onward, ‘go at him. With him dead, all will be ended. If not – keep riding and follow me.’

  They all nodded, pale-faced Will with his sword already in hand, John Dubh grim as old stones and Ewan, his hauberk hitched up to his waist, big sword on his back and his long legs white and patched with cold.

  They rode on down the west side of the hill, picking through the tangled bracken and stunted bushes. Then Ewan pointed out the riders.

  There were six, mayhap eight, Batty thought but he could not see any of them looking like Nebless Clem. Neither did anyone else.

  ‘Well,’ Batty said. ‘Draw your weapons and ride at them. Don’t spare shot or steel, get through and keep riding.’

  He said it more easily than he felt it; there were eight at least, he thought, two of them unshipping lances, one with a latchbow. No firelocks of any kind – unless he was mistaken about the latchbow. He wanted to call out to Ewan with his better eyes, but thought better of it and drew one of the big daggs out of its saddle holster.

  Then he blew out his cheeks, tried to ignore the roiling of his bowels and kicked Fiskie. The beast leaped forward gamely, caught a foot in the bracken and stumbled; Batty felt a rush from heel to crown, a shock that left him trembling. Bigod, beast, dinna do anything so foolish as fall here…

  To his right, he saw Will, sword out, leaning low and he almost cried out with delight at him – gaun yerself wee Will. Show them how much of a cripple you are not.

  Then he aimed himself at a rider, a man amorphous behind a beard and hair, a metal breastplate rusted to the colour of dung and a six-foot length of lance couched like a noble knight. He was determined and confident, looking to skewer his opponent without even getting close enough to worry; he never had time to realise the horror of his mistake.

  Batty triggered the dagg, it spat a plume of fire and the man’s head vanished like a squeezed blood blister; Batty rode through the mist of it, holstering the empty dagg and hauling out a new one. He heard Ewan and John Dubh making warcries and hurling foulness in their own tongue, half-turned but could not see them. He saw Will lumbering after him and waved him on.

  He rode on for a while, then risked stopping and turning Fiskie to face back the way he had come. He saw Will come up and felt a stab of shock at the way he was riding. Behind him were cries and shouts and the clash of steel; get away, he wanted to shout. Get away from them. Run.

  He knew they would not run. Not ever now.

  He moved to Will and saw the sallow, shocked face, the way he held himself. Then he saw the latchbow shaft waggling slightly and at an odd angle low down in Will’s side. Batty holstered his pistol and got close enough to grasp it; Will gasped.

  ‘Caught a clankie,’ he said. Batty felt the play in the shaft and took a chance, gripped hard and hauled it out; Will gave a sharp cry and started to fall off the horse until Batty held him up. When Will was steady, Batty looked at the point of the bolt, saw the blood and flesh on it. Not lung, was the best he could come up with from his long experience, but there was fat on it that showed it had gone deep and driven in fabric and filth.

  ‘Can you ride?’

  Will nodded. ‘The others…’

  ‘When they are done looting their dead, they will be along.’

  Will wanted to say they were leaving two against six at least, but the words didn’t form on his tongue and he had to concentrate hard on not falling off.

  ‘Stay with me,’ he heard Batty say. ‘We will make for the Saltburn Bridge.’

  ‘We are supposed to fight Nebless Clem,’ Will managed – or thought he did. He did not hear if Batty replied.

  Batty had said nothing and kept it that way, having to lead Will’s mount with his one good hand all the way down to the Saltburn brig. The Saltburn wasn’t a big stream – you could step over it further up – but the road led down to where it cut through the moss, a wheen of years having made it a long drop to where it gurgled over boulders.

  The brig was a wooden affair, built so that packhorses full of Solway salt could cut a long way round to Edinburgh. It was timber, too narrow for carts and with a railing so rickety and low that folk didn’t dare ride across it, but led horses quietly.

  ‘Dinna take a tumble here,’ Batty warned but the lolling figure said nothing; Batty let out his breath when they were on the far side. He left Will in the saddle, praying to God the man would not fall, praying to the Devil that he could manage to get him back up again; Will moaned and his breath wheezed in and out – but at least it was still going in and out.

  Batty wanted to attend to him, but there was something more pressing and he dug it out from under the jack – two cloistered rolls of powder and the last of his slow match.

  He moved back out a third of the way on to the brig and set his charges, hoping they would not just fizzle out, having no containment to shout against. Even fizzing would be good, he thought. Might set fire to the old timbers if they were not too damp. Below him, the river seemed to gurgle distant agreement.

  He set one charge there, then moved back and set the other on the timbers at the end. These he managed to pack under stones. Then he went to look at Will as the sun blazed up.

  ‘It will be a nice day,’ Will observed.

  ‘Any day is where you live to see the close,’ Batty declared and then cursed, wishing he had not trotted out the old saw so glibly. He led Will a little way to where a choke of hawthorn and rowan held a sunken glade which provided some cover, then heaved Will off on to the soft bracken; Will’s legs buckled as soon as they touched earth, but Batty stretched him out on his back, then covered him with their blankets. He looked back, squinting into the sun in the hope of seeing Ewan and John Dubh riding up, but there was nothing.

  He wanted to stay, light a small fire, make some broth, examine Will’s wound more thoroughly – but it was too close and if Ewan and John Dubh had gone down to the mulch, then their enemies would be moving west.

  He did what he could for Will, all the same; a trick of God had laid him out where the sun blazoned like a torch and he could see what was what. It wasn’t good. Will’s jack had padding but no plates, neither horn nor metal. It was fastened by toggles of bone and when he laboriously unfastened it, something large fell out which made his own belly flip back and forth.

  It wasn’t Will’s innards, it was the bag of coin, slashed where the latchbow bolt had hit it and gone off at an angle. Now that the wound was exposed, Batty could see it had gone deep. He was no chirugeon, but Batty knew the wounds of battle, knew that this was a belly wound which was invariably fatal no matter what it had hit. Knew it had probably nicked the liver.

  ‘Bad is it?’ Will asked and Batty managed a laugh.

  ‘Thought your innards were falling out – facered me a bit. That bliddy bag of coins.’

  ‘Saved my life, though, eh?’

  Batty fumbled out his flask and drank, then offered it to Will, who drank and coughed; Batty knew it would do him no good in the long term, but the short one made Will sigh with satisfaction.

  ‘Good medicating Batty. Whit is it, or dare I ask?’

  ‘Ma’s tonic,’ Batty lied. ‘Should have a daud of beef in it but there’s no time to making broth.�
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  ‘Does it work?’

  Now there was plaint in Will’s question and Batty tried to ignore it. ‘Everytime someone got dinged – usually my da – Ma would make this. Send me out for all sorts of herbs from mugwort and cockspur grass to lamb’s cress. There isnae a wee bit of greenery I am not familiar with. Mixed it with powder-proofed brandy and called it ‘musket ball tonic’. My da swore by it.’

  ‘Ball tonic,’ Will repeated dreamily while Batty worked around the hole in his side, badly fretted where he had torn out the bolt.

  ‘My da was sick as a rabid dog once, for eight or so long days,’ he went on, to keep Will’s mind off the pain. ‘Ma fed him her tonic every day, sometimes twice and on the ninth, his fever broke, he coughed and spat up a caliver shot, which was all his bad cess rolled into iron. Sat up saying he was friskier than a March hare.’

  ‘Away…’ Will said, softly disbelieving and then his head lolled. For a second, Batty panicked but then he heard the breathing, ragged but audible and sat back, heaving a relieved sigh. He used his neckscarf to bind up the wound and levered himself to his feet, squinting into the sun. He thought he saw a shape, but heard a brief wet cough behind him and turned back to Will.

  He slept, breathing uneasily. When Batty touched his lips he came away with blood on his fingers. When he turned back, he saw two horses and wished he had managed to reload all his pistols; the axe-handled dagg was ready, so he hefted it in his worn fist.

  He didn’t need it. The lead rider was Ewan, the handle of his big sword harsh as a cross against the diffusing dawn and he trailed another horse which Batty thought was riderless until they got closer.

  There was a shape across the saddle and it made Batty’s heart lurch. Ewan did not dismount on the rickety bridge, but rode quietly on to it, pulling the reluctant horse behind him. He turned once to make sure the body on it didn’t foul on the ragged handrail and, when he walked off the far end, he stopped and looked at Batty and the lolling Will.

  ‘Is he bad hurt?’ he asked hoarsely and Batty could not reply for fear Will might hear it, so he squinted at the load on the second horse and asked if that was John Dubh and if he was hurt bad.