Reiver

by David Pilling

  REIVER

  By David Pilling

  Now Liddesdale has ridden a raid,

  But I wot they had better stayed at hame.

  For Peter Winfield he is dead,

  And Jock o'the Side is prisoner taken.

  – Jock o’ the Side

  GLOSSARY

  Bairn – Border slang for child

  Bastle – fortified barn for cattle

  Burgonet – a kind of visored helmet

  Caliver – a type of light musket

  Corbies – ravens

  Dag – type of wheellock pistol

  Handbaw – a ball game played on the Border

  Hobbler – breed of Border pony

  Laird – lord/chieftain

  Nolte/Kyne – Border slang for cattle

  Morion – helmet with a ridged crest

  Reiver – Border slang for raider/robber

  Slew-hound – breed of Border hunting dog

  1.

  Hoof beats drummed over the tops. Twelve strong thieves of Liddesdale, mounted on good ponies and armed for war, left their dark valley at dead of night.

  Across the broad waste they rode, in mist and rain, over the border into Redesdale. Two hours after midnight, their way lit by a swollen moon, they arrived within sight of their target.

  The place was called Crowhame. A village of sorts, six timber cabins clustered at the head of rain-drenched hills. There was a farmhouse also, a strong place of stone, larger than the cabins. Beside the farmhouse loomed the silhouette of a fortified bastle. Its rugged shape clung to the slopes like a slumbering beast. The inbye fields, surrounded by ditches and watered by a burn, were a little way down on flatter ground.

  From there could be heard the grunts and snuffles of kyne, nosing about for tufts of grass. A hay barn and a stable lay at the edge of the fields. Firelight glowed under a shelter between the timber buildings.

  The riders slowly picked their way down into the fields. Wrapped up in their cloaks, the Liddesdale men were expert at moving in speed and silence.

  Inside one of the cabins Richie Reade stirred in his sleep. His dreams were disturbed of late, full of dread premonitions: muddied fields strewn with dead soldiers; a burning Bible cut loose from its altar, hallowed pages scattered across the flagstones; a red bull, steam rising from its nostrils, bounding over a red river.

  Ruth, his mate, turned over and draped a slender arm over his chest. She was fourteen, he two years older. They had been handfasted the previous autumn, before the blasts of winter came. If they sorted well together, the marriage would take place in the spring. If not, Ruth was free to break with him and look for a more suitable mate.

  Richie's eyes snapped open. His dreams evaporated. Despite the cold of the night, his skin prickled with sweat. A fire burned low on the flat stone hearth – the fire was always kept burning, night and day – but it gave off little heat. Beside the hearth a black iron pot bubbled with lukewarm pottage.

  He gently lifted Ruth's arm and sat upright. Dead silence reigned inside and out. His instincts screamed at him to listen beyond the silence, to heed his worst fears and act on them.

  Richie slowly hooked a leg out of bed and reached for his jerkin and breeches, dumped in a pile on the earthen floor. Careful not to wake Ruth, he reached for his short cutting sword, propped against the wall, and belted it on.

  The shaft of a longbow and a sheaf of grey-feathered arrows rested beside the door. Richie snatched up the bow, quickly strung it, snatched a fistful of arrows. He lifted the bar on the door and crept outside, barefoot, into freezing darkness.

  He trod over wet grass. A cold wind sighed across the hills and knifed through the wool of his jerkin. Richie ignored the chill and damp and peered down at the white fields.

  The Reades were no fools. A fire was kept burning all night beside the byres, with two men and a dog on watch. In recent weeks cross-border raids had become ever more frequent, though as yet their village had been spared.

  “Our turn will come. The bastards won't find us unprepared. We are no man's prey.”

  These words, spoken by Richie's uncle Archie, echoed in his mind. He grimaced when he remembered who was on watch: Patie's Adam and Walter Reade. Neither man could stand the other, and Patie's Adam was a hopeless drunk. Uncle Archie, headman of the village, could scarce have chosen a worse pair to sit through the long hours of winter darkness together. Unless Adam had drunk himself into a stupor, both men could be at each other's throats by now.

  Richie crept a few paces down the hill. Inwardly he cursed himself. Jumping at shadows in the night? How his kinsmen would laugh. A Reade was supposed to be made of harder stuff. Yet it paid to be alert.

  He froze. Below him, near the fire, the dog had started to bark. At least one of the sentries was on their guard. Then he heard Walter's rough voice raised in anger.

  “Quit your noise, you dull beast! Here – here, what's that? Riders! Adam, wake up, man!”

  Then the clop of hoofs, the jingle of harness. A shot rang out. Walter shrieked in pain. The dog's barks rose to a frenzy. A yell, followed by muffled curses. Another shot, and the dog fell silent.

  “Slay that loon! Anton, run me a lance through his liver!”

  A stranger's voice, gruff and full of menace. Richie picked out an arrow and twisted his head.

  “Awake!” he bawled at the top of his voice. “Liddesdale is upon us! Arm yourselves! A rescue, a rescue!”

  The hoof beats drummed ever louder. A figure hove into view, scrambling on all fours up the slope. Adam's pale face, distorted with terror, glinted in the moonlight.

  “Richie!” he cried. “Help me, in God’s name!”

  A reiver on a black hobbler loomed behind him, breastplate gleaming, face invisible under a steel cap. The reiver hurled his lance. Adam flung his head back in a noiseless scream, mouth wide open, hands clawing at the lance-head burst through his chest.

  Richie planted his arrows in the turf, chose one and notched it to the string. He was most at home with a bow in his hand. For the past three years running he had won the prize at the butts at Carlisle fair, where he was known as Richie O’the Bow.

  He took aim at the reiver’s hulking shadow, drew the string back to his ear and loosed.

  Even in near-pitch darkness, Richie was a good shot. The arrow hit the reiver square in the face and bowled him out of the saddle. He dropped without a sound and hit the grass. His hobbler, suddenly deprived of her mount, tossed her shaggy head and plunged away into the night.

  Richie’s blood ran cold. It had nothing to do with the night chill. He knew these reivers were most likely Liddesdale men, riding surnames; Armstrongs and Elliots and Crosiers and their ilk. If any man killed one of them, by fair means or foul, he was made the subject of deadly feud. His victim’s kin would not rest until he lay dead at their feet.

  There was no time to think of that now. More reivers came galloping through the murk, lit up in devilish silhouette by the fire. They cried out at the sight of their dead comrade and veered aside to avoid trampling his body.

  Richie turned and scrambled back up the hill, hoof beats thudding in his ears. Above him lights flared in the doorway and upper windows of the farmhouse. The villagers had heard his warning. They spilled from their dwellings, men and women and bairns, all bristling with weapons: swords and lances and bows, one or two Jedburgh axes. A man cursed as he rammed the wadding down the long barrel of his caliver. The clumsy, new-fangled weapon was still unpopular along the Border, where men preferred to cling to the longbow.

  Richie spotted his uncle among them. Long white hair streaming in the wind, Archie wore only his patched breeches and brandished a dag in his right hand. To the old man’s left stood Ruth, barefoot in her white shift, clutching a spear.

  “Richie!”
Archie roared. “Drop down!”

  The dag fired. At the same time Richie dived onto the snow. He rolled, heard a man yell, threw away his bow and groped for his sword.

  A lance flashed past his face and stuck quivering in the ground, barely a yard to his left. One of the reivers had cast it at him.

  Richie silently blessed his good fortune. Many reivers were skilled javelin-men, able to spear salmon in the river from horseback. Distracted by the flash and noise of Archie’s pistol, this one had missed with his throw. Otherwise Richie would be dead already, transfixed by a Liddesdale lance.

  By moonlight he saw two reivers swing aside their mounts. The caliver banged, arrows flitted towards them. None found a target, and the horsemen pelted back down the hill at breakneck pace.

  “They’re after the nolte!” bawled Archie, though his kin scarcely needed telling. Their village had been raided before by Liddesdale and others. Everyone knew the way of it. Even now the reivers would be rounding up the cows in the fields below, gathering the beasts into a tight pack before driving them away north.

  Richie got up and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked to his uncle, who stood in silence, empty pistol hanging by his side. A few of the Reades surged forward, Ruth among them, then stopped when the rest didn’t follow.

  “Why do you hesitate?” shouted Richie, shaking his sword. “The bastards are making off with our kyne! Two of our folk lie down there, slaughtered like pigs.”

  Archie found his voice. “You,” he grunted, nodding at Richie’s cousin Geordie, “get over to Hobbe’s farm and rouse him and his sons.”

  “You,” he added, this time at Thom, another young kinsman, “over to Falstone. Lively, now!”

  The two youths sprinted off to the bastle to fetch their ponies. Meantime the Reades milled uncertainly, listening to the shouts of the reivers below.

  Once his rush of blood had passed, Richie understood his uncle’s caution. Even a handful of reivers, well-armed and mounted, were formidable opponents. In contrast the Reades were poor folk, with few firearms and barely a back and breast between them.

  Poor, yet not defenceless. Archie had had the presence of mind to order the hobblers placed inside the bastle, where they were safe from marauders. Stolen beasts could be recovered, but not without horses.

  We are no man’s prey, thought Richie. A swell of pride filled him as he remembered the reiver he had shot. His first kill. One less thief to ride back to Liddesdale and boast of his deeds.

  “Fetch your gear, lads,” shouted Archie. “We’ll let the bastards below get a good start on us, then give chase when the rest of our boys arrive.”

  The old Borderer knew his business. With Hobbe and his five sons, and the men of Falstone, the Reades would have enough riders to go after Liddesdale and give the reivers a thrashing.

  Richie turned to fetch his gear from the cabin. Ruth stepped in his path.

  “I’m coming too,” she said in a tone he knew all too well.

  He scowled at her. “Don’t be bloody daft,” he snapped, trying to push past. She caught his arm.

  “I can ride as well as any,” she replied fiercely, “and use lance and dagger.”

  The scowl hadn’t worked, so Richie tried a grin. “Aye, and kill men with a glance. Get out the road, woman.”

  “I’m coming,” she said stubbornly. Richie shook his head and jogged on. Arguing with her in this mood was so much wasted breath.

  At the hut he quickly gathered up his gear: steel cap, padded jack, lance and dagger. There would be no time to dismount and use his bow in the fight to come. It would be brutal, close-quarter stuff, blade to blade on horseback against some of the best and fiercest fighters on earth.

  He shivered at the prospect. Richie had never crossed swords with a reiver before. His uncle had forbade him to take part in the forays the Reades mounted into Scotland, usually with their cousins among the larger English riding families.

  “Your father left you in my charge,” Archie would say, “and bade me swear an oath I would guide his son to manhood. I don’t break oaths to my kin. So you can stay here, practice with your bow and like it.”

  It was humiliating to be left behind while his kinsmen rode off to burn and slay and steal. This time Archie would have to let him come. Every lance was needed on the hot trod.

  ‘Hot trod’ was the term for the chase. On the Border every man had the right to go after thieves to recover his property. If they showed fight, he might kill them without fear of the law. If the hunt began within six days of the crime, it was a hot trod. Any later, it was cold.

  Tying the laces of his cap, Richie hurried outside. Ruth was waiting for him by the farmhouse. His future spouse had also donned a steel cap and stuffed a long dagger into her belt. She held the reins of their hobblers, two charcoal grey ponies named Jack and Grace.

  “Well,” she called out, “what are you waiting for?”

  2.

  The Reades and their allies, now some thirty horse, rode through the waste at a fast canter. Like their enemies, they knew all the paths and secret ways. Rain fell in sheets, driven into their faces by a strong wind, yet above them the pale moon acted as a lantern. Even the most near-sighted of them could make out the trail of hoof prints, horses and cattle mixed together in the mud.

  Richie kept pace with his uncle at the head of the troop. Mindful of the old man's pride, he was careful not to outstrip him. Not far behind, Ruth urged her hobbler over the rough ground. Richie was torn between his bloodlust, a fell longing to get at the Scots, and concern for his mate's safety.

  I should know better, he told himself. Border women were no delicate flowers. Ruth was by no means the first to ride out with the menfolk on raid or trod. Richie's own mother had accompanied his father on raids into Teviotdale.

  Still, he wished Ruth had stayed at home. He loved her, more than he loved any living creature save perhaps his uncle. The thought of her dying on such a filthy night, in rain and mud and darkness with a lance in her guts, was more than he could bear.

  He switched his mind to the task in hand. His blood pulsed faster as he realised they were gaining fast on their quarry. The prints in the wet mud became ever more frequent. Above the drumming of hooves Richie thought he heard the lowing of stolen kyne, somewhere along the crooked trail to the north.

  The reivers would be slowed down, forced to goad and whack the lumbering beasts through the dismal waste, over stark hills and dales and through deep, fast-flowing burns. A few of the older beasts would have made this journey before in previous raids. He smiled wryly at the thought of these hapless animals, forced to spend their days plodding wearily back and forth across the border.

  “There!”

  His uncle's hoarse shout ripped through the murk. Archie rose in his stirrups to see. He glimpsed the stark silhouettes of horsemen on a stony ridge, half a bowshot ahead.

  The kyne were clustered together in some marshy ground at the foot of the ridge. They stood fetlock-deep in muddy water, filling the air with their bellows and milling about in confusion. Enraged reivers rode about the edge of the marsh, jabbing their lances at the steaming bovines in a vain effort to get them moving again.

  “Red-handed!” cried Archie. “We have them, we have them!”

  The nearest reivers heard his shout and wheeled about to face the oncoming trod. One, a tall man, long legs hanging down over the flanks of his little hobbler, lowered his lance and charged.

  Richie booted Jack into a gallop. Cries of warning trailed away behind him. He couched his lance, and the Scotch reiver and the Englishman thundered together like two old-style knights at a joust.

  Before the impact, Richie touched his hobbler's neck. She turned sharply left. He leaned over in the saddle, clinging to her mane. His opponent's lance seared past and struck thin air.

  Richie hurled his lance at the tall reiver, who ducked and avoided the throw. Snarling, both men tore out their swords. They closed, hacking at each other's faces while a bloody melee
erupted around them.

  Though outnumbered, the reivers had turned to meet the Reades head-on. The night rang with the clash of swords and knives and lances; scrape of blades on steel, the screams of horses, bellows of frightened cattle, oaths and curses and gurgles and guttural Border voices wishing each other to damnation.

  Richie's foe was a head taller than he, and strong with it. His face was lean and freckled, mouth curled in a snarl, blue eyes blazing. A lock of greasy auburn hair curled from under the rim of his steel bonnet. He used his superior strength and reach to batter down Richie's guard, stabbing again and again until Richie's wrist throbbed with pain and the sweat ran in torrents down his brow.

  “Your name, fool,” snarled the reiver, “so I may sing of your death.”

  “Richie Reade of Crowhame,” Richie shouted. “I’ll get your name from your mother next time I hump her.”

  Goaded, the reiver suddenly changed tactics and thrust with the point at Richie's throat. Richie jerked his head aside and cut wildly. His accidental slash cut diagonally into the meat of his opponent's neck and raised a great spurt of blood.

  The reiver's blue eyes widened in shock. He dropped his sword and pawed at Richie, who gripped his neck and pulled him out of the saddle. The reiver’s massive body crashed onto the ground with one foot still stuck in the stirrup. Neighing, his hobbler cantered away and dragged him through the mire.

  Richie gaped after the dying man. Two Liddesdale thieves he had slain this night – two! Skilled men of war, who would have cut him to pieces in fair fight nine times out of ten.

  Around him the brief battle swiftly petered out. The surviving reivers fled, abandoning the kyne. Three of their number, including the reiver Richie had felled, lay stretched out on the ground.

  One man twisted in the saddle as he rode away and pointed his sword at Richie. “You're a dead man, Richie Reade!” he yelled. “There will be a reckoning for this night's work!”

  Richie ignored the reiver's cry and looked around for Ruth. Relief swept through him when he spotted her a little distance away, smiling grimly as she wiped the head of her axe. No Reades had fallen, so far as he could see, though old Hobbe spat oaths as he nursed a sword-cut to his shoulder.