“The Kerrs?” The Kings and Princes of the Middle March, in other words. Some of the worst reivers on the Border, north or south. “Cessford? Ferniehurst?”
Anricks shrugged. “That’s all he said, I wish I’d asked him but I didn’t. I just told him to be careful.”
In the end they could come to no conclusion about Jock Tait except to see if they could bribe him. And also Elizabeth had a worry that Tait would know who had told Elizabeth about the horses and young Jimmy might be badly beaten, or even killed. It had to be done with great care, as with everything else on the frontier. The only person she knew who really rejoiced at such complexities and loved working them out was Robin, whom she was duty bound not to contact. Where was he now? Was he well? She’d have heard if he was married because her husband would tell her, immediately, but had he met anyone else? It was right for him to marry someone else, God knew he needed the money, but…
Anricks went to his little guest chamber and Elizabeth recruited Humphrey and Daniel to take the trenchers and dishes into the scullery. They put them in to soak in the bucket of water Anricks had used and left them.
In the bedroom, Elizabeth invited Mrs Trotter to share the big bed rather than the truckle with the hole in it and listened drowsily to a very interesting account of young Cuddy Trotter and how he loved his lessons and how he could read all manner of things like a Bible in the church and a ballad sheet too, read it right off as if he had just heard it and how excited he’d been the month before. The minister had been full of excitement as well; they were talking of all making a journey to Carlisle, all the boys in the school in October and…
“All the boys in the school?” she asked, wide awake again.
“Ay, my lady,” said Cuddy’s mam, “they wis all to walk tae Carlisle together, him and them and they’d go the long way about it fra here down the Great North Road tae Berwick and they hadnae decided whether to go across the tops of the Cheviots or take the long way round from Newcastle by the old Faery Road behind the Faery Wall, tae Carlisle. He thought it would take a week but…”
“Why not go to Newcastle? It’s much nearer?”
“Ay well, it’s the choir at Carlisle. He wanted tae see if any o’ the boys could be ’prenticed singers there.”
“Would you like Cuddy to do that?”
“Ay, I would, for Cuddy could be a clerk or even a minister like Minister Burn hisself but Cuddy canna sing at all so I doot they’d take him. Still, it’s an adventure and the boys wis all for it and maist o’ the parents. Maist.”
“Not Jock Tait.”
“Ay and one o’ the ithers, but the minister said it was a’ or none and he’d see tae it. He was planning to take Lord Hughie as well.”
“Why was he doing all this? He didn’t have to.”
“Ah, that’s the Reverend Gilpin for ye.”
“I’ve heard that name before.”
“It wis a priest and then a reverend a while back, in England. He had a living somewhere in the South and soft and plenty o’ money and instead of sitting on it and getting fat he came oot here to the Borders and made schools for the boys, taught them hisself, he did, and the best he sent tae the university. All in England, though, but Jamie Burn heard him preach once and went tae him and lied and said he was an English Burn. He wis at the Reverend Gilpin’s school in the South when the fighting over Queen Mary and the Earl of Bothwell wis on and came North again when his dad sent for him and wis a bonny reiver. But he could ha’ gone to St Andrews and when he’d made enough as a reiver, that’s where he went, tae the university, to learn him Latin and Greek and Divinity for to be a minister like Gilpin.”
“Oh. I never knew. What happened to Gilpin?”
“He wis killt by being run over by a bull, I know that, it got loose in the market and trampled him and he died a month later and all his boys came from far and wide to sing at his funeral, Jamie Burn too. It was in the early eighties, I think, before the Armada, and that’s when the minister made up his mind to gae to university and so he did.”
“I see.”
“Gilpin used to preach wonderful sermons, he’d tell all about Hell and how there wis no Purgatory and how tae stay oot of Hell and get into Heaven—which he said wis easier nor anybody thought, because ye could just clap hands wi’ God and He’d see ye right.”
“Did you hear him preach?”
“Nay, but in church the minister told us some of his old sermons, which was good ones, when he hadnae the time to think of one of his ain.”
“Hmm.”
“There’s another one where Gilpin says every reiver ye teach to read is peradventure one reiver the less for if a clever man sees no fair way to make his living, why then he’ll use foul ways and cause a lot more trouble than a stupid man.”
“Very true.”
“Ye should read them, they’re good and comforting. Like the minister’s ain sermons but not one o’ his was more than an hour, ye ken.”
“So I heard.”
“It’s a pity they willna make their journey tae Carlisle now,” said Mrs Trotter wistfully. “It’s a real pity.”
As Elizabeth dropped off to sleep, her jaw was set and the expression on her face fierce.
Wednesday Morning 18th October 1592
She knelt to her prayers with a will the next morning, knelt and practically shouted at God that He should help her with what she thought of as the minister’s legacy or she would want to know the reason why. An extraordinary thing happened then: She got the feeling of a vast and intimate smile, a warmth in her chest as if she had understood something important and lovely, except she didn’t know what it was.
She stood up and went out, told Young Henry who was practising gunnery in the orchard that the noise was giving her a headache and she would ride over and see if Lady Hume was well. He sent one of the cousins, young Hector since nobody else was around, which she accepted with reservations. Hector was all smiles and “my lady” so perhaps he had learned his lesson. She took a satchel with her, with pens and ink for she had contacts at the Scottish Court, and in particular Lord Chancellor Maitland who had begun as a friend of her husband’s and become a friend of hers.
She had already packed up all Poppy’s shifts and caps and stockings with her spare kirtles and aprons in a tight bundle inside her cloak which had been loaded onto a pack pony at the alehouse. Right in the middle of the bundles were the three goblets and the dish with cherubs on it that were Poppy’s dowry. She had Jamie’s will in her petticoat pocket and she couldn’t think of anything else apart from the books which would need a string of pack ponies.
On the ride she thought so hard about the letter she was thinking of sending that she didn’t notice at first that a man on horseback was paralleling them. She looked about for Hector and saw him, a way away, riding hell for leather in the opposite direction. Her stomach twisted and turned to stone and she looked about, rising as high as she could and peering. Two more riders were just out of sight, popping up every so often.
That was enough. She took a deep and careful breath and thought about it. The track up to the Hume castle was muddy but it went into a wooded area about a mile ahead and since nobody was doing anything yet, she was willing to bet that there was somebody waiting for her in the wood. Three out there, three more in the wood, perhaps.
They knew she must have seen them and they knew she had no man with her to guard her. They were still about two miles from the castle which was a longish run.
Her heart was beating hard and heavy in her chest and her mouth was dry. What could she do? What should she do? If she had been a man her best bet might have been to turn her horse about and ride for the nearest one. Or go into the wood and fight them there. Stupid to think like that, she was not a man.
She really did not fancy the wood; it looked muddy as well as autumn dark. No, so she wouldn’t go there. The castle wasn’t big, it ha
d a moat and a curtain wall and a gatehouse as well once you were past the wood, of course. It was a scrubby little wood, a copse really, that had been allowed to grow up since the Rough Wooing. Why? The Humes weren’t fools, and nor was Lady Hume, away with the faeries half the time though she was. You didn’t let stuff like that grow up on the main route into the castle—unless it wasn’t the main route. Unless it had been allowed to grow to give a good ambush place for people who didn’t know what the right route was?
She hadn’t been to the castle but she felt a rightness to that. Why else would they do that? And forbye, they would want the main entrance to the north, toward Edinburgh, not the south.
All right. She put her hand up to her hat and pinned it on tight to her cap, which hid the sore place on her skull and the cut hair. She set herself down into the sidesaddle, gripped with her leg around the hook and put the heel of her other leg into the horse’s side so the animal leaped forward and started to run.
She rode at the gallop under the eaves of the wood, bent low to avoid the branches, dodged round a couple of trees and bushes, and then burst out again and rode around the wood and round the edge of the moat. She didn’t bother to check the riders to see what they were doing, but kicked the horse again to get some more speed and rode like a madwoman around the curve of the old mound and there it was, a moat and working drawbridge.
The drawbridge was up. She hauled back on the reins and managed not to go into the moat.
There was a shout behind her, there were five of them now. She gave them a fig with her right hand while she rode out her horse’s bucking, speaking softly to him, poor soul.
There was a man on the wall, not Cousin William, looking down at her and the men.
“Let me in,” she shouted, “they’re after me.”
“They are?” said the man. “They’re no’, are they?”
“Ay, they are.”
“Why?”
“I dinna ken,” she shrieked in broad Scots. “Will ye shoot one for me so Ah kin ax?”
To her fury, the man turned away, bent, picked up a loaded crossbow and aimed it at her. She knew the men behind her were coming up closer.
“Her ladyship says she’s sorry, but ye canna come in. She canna help ye.”
Her horse was turning and crowhopping still. She only had seconds. She took off her mother’s handfasting ring and threaded it onto a bare autumn twig of a hazel bush. Then somebody’s strong fist caught the bridle and somebody else came up close to her with a scarf. She looked round at them, hard faces under helmets, wearing jacks that marked them as Burns, though she didn’t recognise anybody. She was still buoyed by rage.
“How dare you!” she hissed in English now. “How dare you? You will regret this.”
“Ay, mebbe, missus. Meantime, ye come wi’ us.”
Wednesday 18th October 1592
Dodd reached Wendron by mid-morning and found his bird flown again.
“Och,” he said when he found he had to ride another ten miles to Norwood Castle where Lady Widdrington had gone to pay her respects to Lady Hume. “I need another horse.”
Young Henry Widdrington gave him a little hobby with the warning that the beast had a nasty temper and would bite. He remembered to give the letter to the small man who came out of the house to see him and introduced himself as Simon Anricks. He was trotting up the road half an hour later with his belly growling. Since Lady Widdrington would keep, since she was no doubt blethering on to her friends and had forgotten the time as women did, he stopped by some trees and rocks and ate up the first of the packages that Mrs Burn had given him, which contained a hearty wedge of the pie, bread, cheese, a couple of pickled onions wrapped in waxed paper, and an apple. This was the nicest food he could think of and he ate all of it, especially the apple. Lady Widdrington must have an apple tree or know someone who did and he found he wanted one too. Not a sapling, mind, but a full tree, less for the apples than for what it meant, which was that nobody had burnt the country for at least twenty years.
Well, you never knew. When he had finished the apple which was quite sweet, he looked around to make sure no one was watching and then dug a hole and buried it in the Earth.
He rode on to the Hume castle and found the place open as he expected, though he wondered what had been going on nearby since there were hoofprints of a horse galloping and others overlaying it before heading off across country.
When he rode in there was a sprightly old lady in a hat and velvet gown and her stout middle-aged woman standing behind her.
“Och, yes,” said Lady Hume with a sweet smile. “She came to say good-bye and then turned about and went home tae England again.”
“Ay,” said Dodd, annoyed. How had he missed her then? Maybe when he was having his breakfast? “When was that?”
“A couple of hours ago,” said the woman, also smiling. “It wis nice tae see her.”
“Ay, thank ’ee kindly,” said Dodd and turned the hobby’s head and aimed south.
He went quicker on the way back, despite the hobby’s tricks, which kept trying to turn his head west instead of south, but Dodd prevailed after a couple of tussles. He didn’t want to miss Lady Widdrington again.
He saw Anricks again to the north of the village, riding a hobby and leading a pack pony, looking worried—though from the lines on his face that expression was a habit. He tipped his hat to the man. Then he took another look at the pack which was currently stowed on the pack pony behind him. It was brightly painted with lurid pictures: one showed a man with a swollen face and a scarf wrapped round it. The middle one showed a set of pincers and a bloody tooth, and the third picture showed the same man without a swollen face, happily tucking into a dinner consisting of venison and pork ribs and pot herbs.
“Ye’re never a tooth-drawer?” he asked, unable to believe his luck.
“Yes, I am, sir. Do you have the toothache?”
“Nay sir, but I know a man who does, something terrible. What d’ye say to coming tae Carlisle wi’ me and drawing his tooth?” He was quite willing to kidnap the tooth-drawer if it was necessary, but he hoped it wouldn’t be.
The man’s face lit up. “I would be delighted, since I’ve been planning to go to the West March, but I must confess I was nervous of the notorious robbers and reivers there.”
“Ay,” said Dodd, not bothering to explain that they were no worse in the West March than the Middle and certainly better than here in Scotland. The man wasn’t very large and didn’t look at all dangerous with his balding pate and modest black wool suit. “Come wi’ me whiles I find Lady Widdrington and give her my respects and then we’ll be off.” Dodd wasn’t that interested in the ordinary-looking woman who had so bewitched the Courtier, but he knew her and must at least greet her while he was in the area.
Back at Wendron, Young Henry was looking impatient. “Where is she?” he asked. “We’ve forty miles back to Widdrington and it’s late.”
“They said she’d come back here,” said Dodd, also annoyed. Wasn’t that just like a woman, gallivanting off on some notion when people wanted to get home.
“And I canna find Ekie nor Sim,” said Young Henry darkly. “I sent Ekie Widdrington with her to look after her.”
“Maybe she’s fallen off her horse somewhere,” said Dodd, since he had heard that this was something that did happen to people occasionally. “She can’t have gone more than five miles, mebbe less, let’s circle the castle at about five miles out.”
They did that, heading in opposite directions to get it done quicker, and found nothing. Anricks came with them. When there was no trace of her, Dodd started to get worried as well. Kidnapping of women wasn’t unknown in the Borders, although as he understood it, the Widdringtons were a mite tasty for that kind of behaviour.
Then he minded him of the marks near the castle of the galloping horse, overlaid by other hooves, and he cantered bac
k to them, dismounted, and started using his eyes properly. He saw a shod horse, not a hobby, riding toward the castle, saw it slow and then change direction and yes, go into the wood a little, saw broken branches where someone had broken through them at the gallop, saw the swerve at the edge of the moat where the drawbridge was now down, saw the other horses, all of them unshod hobbies surrounding and overlaying the shod hoofprints. It couldn’t have been clearer if somebody had set up a little play to show it to him.
“Och, Jesus Christ,” he swore disgustedly to the hobby who gave him a horsy leer and shook his head.
He hadn’t a hunting horn to call the others so he had to ride around the castle again, now watched by a man on the walls, found Anricks first and told him to go and guard the traces, then Young Henry, who was already scowling. At least the ugly hobby was now cooperating.
“Come and see this,” he said without preamble and Young Henry followed him at once.
Anricks was looking at something on a hazel bush when they got there. He pulled it off and brought it over to them as they cantered up and Dodd saw it was a woman’s ring, a gold handfasting circle.
“I found this,” he said. “It was on the bush over there. Is it Lady Widdrington’s?”
“Ay, it is.” Young Henry’s wonderfully spotty face darkened as they both dismounted and Dodd explained what he could see. Once it was pointed out to him, Young Henry could see it well enough himself.
He loosened his sword and pulled out his horn, winded it and then stood fingering the spot on the end of his nose.
“Four or five of them,” he said, “the traces are clear enough, heading southwest. But.”
“Ay, but.” Dodd shook his head. “Could be. How many men ha’ ye?”
“Ekie and Sim are gone, so only two as well as myself, Mr Anricks if he’ll come, and you.”
“Five, one not a fighter. It’s no’ enough to fight off an ambush.”
“It’s a trod now. I could likely call on the Humes…?”
A Chorus of Innocents Page 18