Raider's Tide

by Maggie Prince

  As I step over the bracken to find the path amongst the trees he walks his horse over to the bottom of the steep bank and calls up to me, “Be careful, Beatrice.”

  “Yes.” I look down at him, then plunge into the leafy darkness.

  The forest is more dangerous at night. I keep to the paths, no matter how small, for fear of snares set by trappers. I move slowly, in order to be silent, knowing I am good at being silent, thankful when the moon comes out from behind the clouds and makes it easier. I am not even sure that Robert will have returned to the cottage, but even if he hasn’t, then I think he will be somewhere near. He will want me to find him.

  It is much further, coming this way. There are places where it is completely dark. As I stop to find my bearings, I realise suddenly that I have been hearing a sound which I can’t identify, a sort of hushing burr. I stand absolutely still and listen. Probably most people would not have heard it, it is so faint and far off, but I have become attuned to the forest these past months, my senses heightened and my hearing sharper than ever. All around me the normal night sounds of the greenwood continue. I move. It is there again. It moves when I move. It is behind me.

  I pull my skirts close. Could it be the sound of my own movement through the brambles? No, my hitched up skirts make no sound. I hear it again. It has an animal purposefulness. It is not the wind in the branches, nor the far-off rippling of the beck. Then my flesh creeps on my bones as I realise what it is. It is air through wet jaws, a damp snuffling close to the ground amongst the leaves. It is the sound of a dog following a trail.

  I want to scream and run. Instead I wait and listen. I clamp my hands to a tree branch to stop myself shaking. It is quite far back, a careful, silent animal stalking the quarry whose scent it has been given, and whom it does not wish to alarm until it is close enough to pounce. It has the scent of Robert’s jerkin in its clever nose, the jerkin which I carried close against me all the way from the tower. Master Spearing’s bratch-hound is stalking me.

  I try to quell my terror and the urge to run for my life, and instead struggle to consider my options. I cannot outrun this beast. It is faster than I am. I cannot continue heading for the cottage either, and risk leading it to Robert. If I could just reach the beck before it sees me, I could wade downstream and it would not be able to follow my trail in the water. It would not know if I had gone upstream or downstream, and even if it were to choose correctly, it would take a long time finding where I had eventually climbed out on to the bank again.

  I edge off noiselessly to my left, leaving the path, risking the snares. Small twigs crackle under my feet. I stop. The dog has stopped too. I can sense it listening. I move on, curling my toes on tree roots and rocks, trying to ease myself silently over the ground. Mist floats amongst tree trunks ahead of me, and I can hear and smell water. Terrifyingly, the sound of the beck is drowning out the noise of my pursuer. I move more quickly, hoping it is drowning out my own sounds too. Suddenly the ground drops away, and I almost fall into the deep cleft in the woods where the beck runs. Thank God! I stoop to scramble down the slope backwards on my hands and knees, and the dog rushes at me out of the darkness.

  Its face is huge, its lips drawn back above dripping teeth. It raises its head and gives a high, belling cry. Faintly, from far off, other dogs answer it. Then it runs at me, snarling, its lips quivering, its muscular shoulders high. I recoil and slither part way down the slope. It follows me, snapping at my face. I realise I know this dog. It is Mad Joly, Master Spearing’s oldest bratch-hound. She comes after me, catching my sleeve with her fangs and ripping it. I scream, “Joly! Stop! Stop it, good dog! You know me!” She hesitates. Moonlight struggles through the trees and shows a corner of red silk caught on her teeth. I wonder where Master Spearing is. I try to pull myself to my feet, wobbling on the steep slope. I must not fall. She would pursue me and tear me to pieces if I did. As we stand, both indecisive, there is movement on the path above, and the excited panting of more dogs.

  “Hold him, girl!” It is Master Spearing. “Well done, lass! Hold t’bastard!”

  “Master Spearing!” I call hoarsely. “Master Spearing, please call your dog off.”

  His face looms above me, his mouth agawp. For a moment he is speechless, then he takes Mad Joly by the scruff of her neck and pulls her away. “Daft bugger, yon’s Mistress Garth. Oh Lordy me, sorry lady. Joly’s getting past it.” He reaches down to help me. I let him haul me up the bank. I find that I am shaking and unable to speak. “I’m right sorry about t’dog, mistress. Were you on t’death hunt? You’re tekking a long way home, aren’t you?”

  I nod again, and manage to stutter, “It’s owls, you see, Master Spearing. I’m studying owls. My teacher, Master Becker…” I’m babbling now. “Master Becker… he sets us tasks for our studies… and this month it’s owls…”

  Master Spearing stares at me, then shakes his head. “Owls? Well I never. What does he want to teach you little ladies about owls for? It’s not as if you could cook ’em…”

  After I have refused Master Spearing’s offers to see me home, and listened to his warnings about mad bogeymen Scots loose in the woods, I wait until he has been gone a comfortable time, then tackle the task of finding the cottage from this direction. Eventually I see its hunched, bramble-covered shape as an irregularity in the pattern of the forest. I sidle from tree to tree. The moon has gone behind a cloud again, but I can see that the door is open. I mould myself to the doorframe and peer in. Two red eyes look back at me.

  All the hairs along the back of my neck stand up. For a moment I think Mad Joly has followed me, then I realise it is a fox which has moved in and is finishing off Robert’s food, a young vixen, still with a fluffiness in her russet coat. I call to her softly. She stands with the leftover bread and cheese clamped in her mouth, strings of saliva dribbling to the ground. I step back to let her out, but she in her turn is waiting for me to go. It is obvious that Robert is not here. I take another step back, to leave her in peace, and an arm seizes me from behind. From the other side a hand clamps over my mouth. My head is dragged back against someone’s body. I can’t move or speak.

  I struggle, and try to scream. The fox patters out past me. Robert’s voice says, “Shhh. There now. Sorry Beatrice. Sorry.” He lets go, and I almost fall into the cottage.

  “Dear Lord, Robert, have you not heard of announcing yourself?” I collapse on to the floor. The smell of fox is very strong.

  He kneels next to me, facing the door, a dagger in his hand. He whispers, “The deer hunters are about. Stay quiet. They may not have heard us. I couldn’t risk you speaking when you saw me. You’re a quiet one, Beatrice. Yon vixen makes more noise than you do. What’s happened to your clothes? Are you all right?”

  I nod, finding I am more than all right. “I met the dogs going home. They had my scent as well as yours, but it was all right.”

  “Mother of God! Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I burst into tears and put my arms round him. “Are you all right?” I realise then that he is as wet as I am, and shivering with cold and weakness. I remember how all this started, and suddenly I am angry. “How could you be so stupid?” I demand. “For the sake of a few sticks for arrows, Robert? Truly, that fox has more sense than you do.”

  He holds me a little back from him, and flicks the dagger so that it lands quivering in the ground. “I needed arrows, darling, and I needed my weapons back. I couldn’t ask you.” Then he holds my soggy body against his, kneeling there, and presses his face into my neck.

  My tears drip into his hair. “You’re going then? You’re going now?”

  “I have to. Where can I find Cedric, to see me over the sands? I wish my arm were strong enough to row, then I could take a boat and go at high tide, but it’s still too weak. It would let me down. I’ll have to cross the sands and walk across the mountains, unless the monks can give me a fast horse to take my chances on.”

  “They’re very poor. It’s unlikely they’ll have horses.
Anyway you’ll be safer on foot. It will be easier to hide, and make your way gradually through the mountains. I’ll see Cedric, but you must rest overnight. Look at you.” I hold up his arm. It is trembling.

  He pulls it away and says, “Beatrice, come with me.”

  I am not surprised. The unasked question has hung in the air between us for weeks. It is a shock to hear it finally spoken, though. I look into his face. Even in the darkness it has become, once again, the face at the window. I shake my head. “It’s impossible.”

  “Scotland is beautiful, Beatrice. Plenty of English girls have crossed the border. You must know what I’m feeling about you.” When I don’t reply he adds, “We get on well enough, don’t we? Tell me truthfully what you feel.” He grips my arms.

  I pull free of him and stand up. “Robert, I couldn’t leave my family. They need me. I have to stay and marry my cousin.”

  “Oh yes, Hughie. Good little Hughie whom you don’t love.” Robert also stands up. “Beatrice you have nothing but trouble from your family. You’d like my family, my mother, father and brothers. I live in a pele tower like yours. Please consider it…”

  I shake my head. “It’s impossible, Robert. You must see. I could never do it, betray my people, go over to the enemy.”

  He puts his arms round me again and kisses my forehead. “Then I shan’t go. I shall stay until you change your mind.”

  “Robert, for heaven’s sake, don’t be ridiculous. They’re looking for you.”

  “I shall stay until harvest. You can visit me here or not, as you please. I’m quite capable of looking after myself now. I shall get my strength back, and then at harvest I shall go. Think about it, Beatrice. Think about coming with me. As for them looking for me, well, I can deal with that.” He is stripping his wet clothes off.

  I ask, “Where did you hide from the death hunt?”

  “Under water, by the willows. I kept my nose out, amongst the tree roots, at the far side. You nearly trod on me.”

  I stare at him. “Dear God. That was why the water was over the path.”

  “I watched you fall in yourself. I thought I’d have to come and save you, but you didnae give me the opportunity.”

  “Why didn’t you speak, let me know you were safe?”

  “It would have put us both in more danger. I’d have had to come out. You’d never have seen me in the dark. We’d have made sounds, ripples. The dogs were too close to risk it. It was best for you to get as far away from me as possible.” He finds the old clothes of my father’s which were too short for him, in a corner, and pulls them on over his damp limbs, then hands me the wet ones. “Beatrice. Bea. What does Hughie call you?”

  “Beatie.”

  “Bea then, will you take these and leave them out on the shore? I’ll steal a horse and give it its freedom on the moors. One way or another, they’ll be fairly sure I’ve gone.”

  I look at him in the darkness. An owl hoots overhead. In the distance foxes call. Robert is like a fox, the fox the raider, the fox the bright and beautiful force of nature. I roll the wet clothes into a bundle. “Robert, you stay hidden. I’ll see to the horse. We have a young one, barely broken, who would dearly like to be back in the wild.” I put down the wet bundle and take hold of his face between my hands. “If you’re set on staying, I can’t stop you, and I cannot deny that it makes me very glad, but you would be safer to go. Even as weak as you are, you would be safer to go. Cedric is always out on the sands at early low tide, collecting cockles. If I don’t find you here tomorrow, I shall know you’ve seen sense and gone.” I kiss him on the cheek, wrap my cloak round me and leave. Saying goodbye is impossible.

  Chapter 16

  I arrive home from leaving the wet clothes on the shore just before dawn, when the tops of the trees on Beacon Hill are starting to show like lace against the sky. This is no time to be stealing a horse. The sheep have begun bleating down on the shoreline, seagulls are calling over the bay and the owls have hushed into silence. I climb the barmkin wall on the far side rather than open the gate with its big, clanking latch, then when I can see the henchman on the battlements moving out of sight, I quickly open the gate from the inside, and lead Rosalind, our wild new filly, out by the mane. She wheels and tries to kick me, then to bite me. Frankly I shall be glad to see the back of her. One-handed, I push the gate to, but leave it unlatched, knowing that none of the other horses will stray, then I walk Rosalind a little way down the valley before swinging up to ride awkwardly astride her – how on earth men manage to ride like this all the time is a mystery to me – and head for the hills.

  It is daylight when I creep exhaustedly home. Those I meet assume I have risen early, and I do my best to preserve an appearance of virtuous and well-rested diligence. I keep John Becker’s cloak tightly round me, to disguise the fact that I am still in yesterday’s clothes. Then I go to my room, tear off the red silk which has dried stiffly on me, and fall asleep almost before I have climbed into bed. This is how I miss what happens.

  Faintly, in my sleep, I hear shouting, and I assume that Rosalind the horse has been missed, but I am too tired to wake properly. When I do finally wake, the sun is half way up the sky. No one has come to find me. They must have assumed that I am on watch, or pursuing my own tasks. I put on a loose linen shift and coarse woven bodice, and go downstairs.

  On my way down I think about what I shall say to Robert, if he has not seen sense and gone. I think about how easy it is to steal a horse, and that I must do something about security. I pause by one of the arrow slits and enjoy the smell of damp earth after early morning rain. A feeling of optimism rises in me. Robert has survived the night and the death hunt. I lean my elbows on the wide inner part of the sill and gaze out through the arrow slit. Low mist hovers in the grass, and a group of men are walking down the valley looking unconnected to the ground. My father is at the head of them. I feel a first pang of disquiet.

  The kitchen is empty. Now things really don’t feel right. I run back upstairs to find Verity, and I can hear Kate’s weeping long before I reach Verity’s room.

  My sister is lying on the stone floor. Her face is bleeding. Her arm looks dislocated. Kate is trying to get her to stand up. My mother is sitting on the bench by the wall, staring at nothing.

  “Dear God, what…?”

  Kate looks round and says, “Your father.”

  “What? Why?” I rush over to Verity and join Kate in trying to help her up. My sister’s head lolls and she gazes blankly at me. I realise she is stunned. I turn to Mother and ask, “Have you sent for the doctor?” I feel stunned myself. I cannot think what has been the cause of this. My mother’s faraway look gradually focuses on me. I assume she is even more shocked than I am, and cannot pull herself together, though that is unlike her. I stand up. “Mother, will you please send a horseman for the doctor?” I ask firmly and loudly. “I am going to help Verity to bed.”

  My mother says, “I have sent for Cedric.”

  “She’s confused.” Kate starts to cry again. “The mistress is befuddled by it all. She hasn’t been anywhere or sent for anyone. She’s just been sitting there.”

  I look at my mother, who for a moment is gone back again, inside her head, and I feel my spine prickle. I say to Kate, “No… I think she has sent for someone.”

  We help Verity to bed, and the movement seems to bring her round. Suddenly she is agitated. She seizes my arm and looks up at me. Her mouth is swollen and bleeding where a tooth has gone through her lip. A droplet of blood oozes on to tight, purple skin. She says in a hoarse voice, “Beatrice, save James. Warn him. They’re going to kill him.”

  A cold breeze blows in, chilling me through. “Where is he?” I whisper.

  “On watch on the Pike. No one else knows, because he exchanged watch with me, but they’ll be hunting him. Tell him to go to the parsonage. He’ll be safe there.”

  I nod. “All right. Yes, I will. But Verity, why on earth did Father…?”

  Kate says grimly, “She and t’
master quarrelled over Master James. She defied him outright.” She jerks her chin in Verity’s direction. “Your father said she’d not be fit to marry anyone by the time he’d finished with her.”

  I stare at my sister, mystified that she can want James so much. Verity groans and touches her lip, then says with difficulty, “Will you get moving, Beatie? Why? You want to know why I want to marry James? So that I can get away from this infernal household. So that I can get away from the appalling notion that I should marry Gerald. So that Low Back Farm can be mine, Beatie, all mine, and I can fill it with my children and do everything my own way.” She leans back against the bolsters, tries to smile, winces at the pain. “However none of this will work unless you get James away from here until Father has calmed down.”

  Kate clicks her tongue and crosses the room to confer with Mother. I put my arm round Verity. “But you have us here, Verity. You do things your own way here.”

  Her lip quivers. She speaks suddenly in the voice of a long-ago Verity, from a time when we were children. “When are you ever here, Beatie?” she asks. “Since Hugh started talking of wedding, you have never been here. I’m pleased for you that you find his company so all-absorbing, but I have been managing here on my own. Talking to myself. I might as well talk to myself on my own land.”

  It isn’t Hugh. The words are on my lips, on the verge of being said. Wanting to be said. As if she senses it, Verity frowns at me and asks, “Is it that? Is it so wonderful with Hugh that you have no time for your family here?”

  I pause, and moisten my lips, which suddenly feel very dry, and instead of answering her, I ask the selfsame question back, under my breath, because it is something I really want to know. “Is it so wonderful, Verity? With you and James?”

  Beyond the pallor and the bruising a flush rises in her cheeks. She does not answer me because Mother is suddenly back with us, putting an arm around Verity and saying, “Fetch hot water and cloths please, Kate. Let’s clean her up.” She nods at me. “Take my horse and go and get James, Beatie. She’ll climb the Pike better than Saint Hilda. Take another one for James. We’ve had that fast new filly stolen in the night. They reckon the Scot took her and got clean away on her, so you’d better take Meadowsweet for James.”