by Max Gilbert
Great bulwarks of hills rose around them, the way grew steep and wild and they led their beasts beside tremendous precipices, over raging river gullies and through pools aboil with foam. They grew used to the screaming eagles circling overhead, and to long silences among themselves.
When at last they came down out of the hills, they hit upon the remains of an ancient stone road, running from the west to the north-east coast. Broken in places, it was still a miracle of easy going after the way they had come, and they were able to follow it for several miles before their way took them north of it, and into forest.
They passed the ruins of deserted farms and villages swallowed by the forest, crumbling walls and roofless ivied chapels. This was Northumberland, torn to pieces over centuries by raids and warfare, stuck together with the blood of martyrs and slaughtered innocents.
They met no one but a tinker with his donkey, whistling his way south; they passed none nor did any catch up with them. For a day the forest track was wide and dry, but then it steepened and worsened, rough and rocky for a mile or two, then boggy and foul. They forded streams, circled deadfalls, and led their beasts round swampy places. Once, far away, they heard a hunting horn, but it came no nearer and they heard it no more. That night it rained, and though they made a shelter of branches, they slept little and lay cold. Next day, the forest started to thin. Then there was a sudden smell of woodsmoke, their rough track crossed another wider, clearer, and they met their first souls since the tinker: a family of charcoal burners, with their low snug huts and wagon. Straccan asked about the road ahead but they gaped at him, the women giggling and whispering to each other, the men unable to understand him or he them. Bane fared no better, their dialect was as foreign a tongue as Greek to him.
They rode on, their footing muddy and slippery after the night's rain, leading the horses for long stretches and plagued by mosquitoes and vicious tiny midges.
There were great hills again, climbing to the east, west and ahead of them. Once, from a hilltop, they saw the distant sea to the east, blue as the sky, and on it a ship with striped sail bellied, scudding south.
At last a will, a poor place but they could buy black bread and ewes' milk, and pay for a night's lodging on fairly clean straw in a farmer's brew house reeking of old ale, but dry. Soon after dawn they were on their way again, given knowledge of the road ahead by their host. 'Two vills, Lords, Muchanger and Haccledun, and then a hard way through the forest for three leagues or so, but after that the road's level and easy and meets other roads, and you will cross into the Scots' country soon after you pass through Crantoun.'
They made good time, stopping in Crantoun at noon for ale and pottage at a hovel reckoned an inn. The house was poor and so was the pottage, but the ale was potent and yes, they were on the road for Crawgard, the innkeeper said sullenly. Go another mile to the ford, then turn west and follow the river road.
They could hear the man cursing long before the path brought them upon him and the reason for his profanity became plain. A loaded cart had overturned spilling sacks of oatmeal, peas and salt, sides of bacon and other goods into the reeds. One of the shafts had snapped, and a knock-kneed horse, freed of its burden, stood in the cool of the river, head down smugly sucking up water. The driver's curses died on his lips as the riders came in view, and he looked no whit reassured by Straccan's amiable greeting. 'Who've you?' he demanded.
'Travellers,' said Straccan. 'Is this the road for Crawgard?'
'Crawgard? Aye.'
Straccan slid from his horse. The carter snatched up a piece of the broken shaft and clutched it competently, like a quarterstaff. 'Keep off,' he snarled.
'We mean no harm,' said Straccan. 'Truly, we are just travellers. Have you an axe?'
'Axe? No. Why?'
'To cut another shaft.' He unstrapped his own axe from the saddle bow. 'Well, do you want a hand or not?'
The new shaft was cut and fitted, the cart righted and reloaded and the melancholy horse harnessed. The driver was friendly now and full of thanks. 'Crawgard's about two miles,' he said. 'I'm going there myself; this lot's for them. It's a rough path--crosses the water three times before it gets there.' He took a leather bottle from under his seat and passed it round.
Miles drank and coughed. 'Sweet Jesus,' he croaked, 'what's that?' He handed it delicately to Straccan. 'Be careful. I think it's poison.' I 'It's whisky,' said the carter indignantly, 'and wasted on Southrons! Give it back if you don't want any.'
The bottle had gone from Straccan, who was wiping his eyes, to Bane, whose startled expression didn't worry Larktwist at all. He tilted the bottle and took three swallows before the carter wrenched it away, shoved the stopper in and poked it back under his seat. 'My brother makes it,' he said. 'Mild as milk. Bairns are raised on it.'
'God help us all if we meet any of your bairns,' said Straccan hoarsely. 'I'm afraid we've drunk most of your bottle.'
'That's all right. I've got another.'
'What's your name?'
'Magnus.'
'Magnus, how would you like to earn some money?'
'How much?'
'Funny,' said Bane. T'd've thought "what for?" would come to mind first.'
'Sixpence,' said Straccan, holding the thin silver coins out on his palm. 'And sixpence more when the job's over.'
'What for?'
'My friend here,' said Straccan, clapping Bane's shoulder, 'has a fancy to ride in your cart.'
'Have I?' Bane said, surprised. 'Oh. Yes. Lucky me!'
Coming up from the leaf-shadowed water into the sunlight, they saw the donjon of Crawgard, the loneliest fastness of the border, stark against the sky. Crowning a low hill, it was an ancient tower, small by English standards, the lower storey built of stone, the two upper floors of wood thickly plastered. A few small thatched buildings leaned against the outer walls. Sunlight gleamed on the helm and pike of the guard on the roof. The great gate stood half open, and two sloppy-looking men-at-arms watched the wagon as it crawled up the road. A couple of hobbled cows and a few newly shorn stunted sheep grazed. There was a pbwerful sheepy smell and constant bleating as they neared the gate. The guards pushed the gate wider open to let the familiar cart roll through.
Inside the yard, penned shaggy sheep were packed tightly and two bent ragged figures were busy with shears. A steady trickle of shorn beasts dashed out through the gate to join the rest on the slopes below. Within the rough circle of the outer wall, the donjon rose tall and grim. An outside stair of stone led up to the first floor where the door to the great hall stood open and a thin haze of smoke leaked out. The ground floor storeroom at the base of the donjon was entered by a broad doorway at the foot of the stair. Smaller timber buildings clustered round the base, rather like the hovels outside: brewery, wash-house, dovecote, stable and byre. Only the kitchen was stone-built. The cart stopped at the kitchen door which also stood open.
Bane followed Magnus inside. In the impenetrable darkness of the farther corners, rats squeaked and scampered over piles of stinking kitchen refuse. A huge sullen fire cast a lurid hellish glow. The cook, a fat dirty man with a pustulant nose, lay on a heap of smelly fleeces behind the door, hiccuping and clutching a leather bottle very like the carter's. A scullion with a black eye and split lip applied himself drearily to the turning of two spits. Mutton smoked on one and a row of plump little ducks blistered on the other. Under the great table, a small boy, soot-streaked and snotty, dabbled wooden platters in a bucket of unspeakable water.
'You're late,' said the cook, waving his bottle at Magnus.
'Had an accident. Broke a shaft. This fellow gave me a hand.'
'Well, bring it all in,' said the cook. 'I'd give you a hand, but you know what my back's like.'
Magnus nudged Bane and winked.
It took an hour or so to unload the waggon, stowing the sacks and tubs in the dark storeroom, which smelled of cheese and onions and had its own population of rats. When they'd finished, the cook offered his leather bottle. Bane decline
d with a shudder but Magnus took several swallows before handing the bottle back. 'Where's Marget?' he asked.
'In the wash-house,' said the cook. 'There's roast duck for dinner, if you're not too tired to eat it.'
Magnus waved a scornful hand. 'See you later,' he said to Bane.
'I'm leaving at first light. You can get a mattress in the hall and have your dinner there.' He made off across the yard to one of the buildings.
'Who's Marget?' Bane asked the scullion.
'His sweetheart,' the man said. 'His sister.' Jerking his head towards the cook.
'What time's dinner?'
'Dusk. Will you help me carry it up?'
'I might. How many feeders?'
'Twenty.'
'That's not the full garrison, is it?'
'Ach, no. The lord's away, he's no been here since Yule, and the young lord's gone off and took twenty with him. So there's just us,' gesturing round the kitchen, 'and Marget, and the young lord's friend in the gatehouse, the lady of course, them upstairs, and the infidel.' He spat and crossed himself.
'No children?'
'No.'
'You sure?'
'Told you, I feed them. Twenty mouths.'
'Who's the lady?'
'The old lord's wife. Puir thing, she's away with the fairies.' He made a gesture universally understood, twirling a finger beside his ear.
'What's this infidel, then?'
The scullion looked uneasy. 'Ach, he's an auld body, belongs to the lord. Ah've niwer seen him. He keeps his room.'
Bane found a barrel of wizened but still-sweet apples, pocketed half a dozen and helped himself to a chunk of cheese. He made his way across the yard and up the outside stair to the door of the hall. Standing in the doorway, he looked into the cavernous smoky room. Rows of straw pallets lay alongside the walls, several of them occupied by sleepers. A roaring fire burned at one end of the hall and beside it lay two huge boar hounds, one asleep, the other scratching with mindless persistence. A few stools and a bench were grouped at a comfortable distance from the fire around a board resting on trestles and half a dozen unshaven unbuttoned men were playing without enthusiasm a game involving dice and small stones.
The stair continued in a spiral inside, its uneven steps curling out of sight.
Bane walked over to the table watched by six pairs of unfriendly eyes.
As Straccan--- a stranger and therefore dangerous—rode up from the river, the watchman atop the donjon had a crossbow bolt aimed at him and the two guards at the gate held their pikes ready to rip his guts out if required. He reined in at a suitable distance. 'Sir Richard Straccan, to see Lord de Soulis.'
The guards stared at him and glanced at one another. One shook his head. 'The lord's away,' he said.
'Where?'
Before the man could reply, a voice from above drawled, 'Well, God-a-mercy! Someone from civilisation has found this godforsaken place!'
Straccan looked up at the small window above the gate. A pale but cheerful face peered down at him. 'A knight, are ye? And seeking Lord Rainard?'
'I have something to deliver to him,' Straccan said. 'Who are you?'
'Turlo FitzCarne of Dun Carne. Oh, let him in. Let him come up,' he cried to the guards who still stood at the ready, looking uncertain. 'He's alone; are you afraid of one man? They probably are, you know,' he added to Straccan. 'Couldn't fight their way out of a haystack!'
The pikemen let him pass. His heart hammered hard and fast beneath his ribs. Somewhere in this place he might find Gilla. If she was here, he'd find her, and God help anyone who tried to stop him.
'Up here!' The voice from above again. A wooden stair led up to the door of the room over the gate and, in the doorway, leaning on rough crutches, was Sir Turlo FitzCarne.
'FitzCarne,' said Straccan, as he mounted the stair. 'Haven't I heard of you?'
'Lord, I should hope so,' said Sir Turlo, crutching rapidly over to a fleece-heaped chair by the window.
'Tourneys,' said Straccan. 'That's what you do. The circuit! You were champion at Chester and Windsor. What on earth are you doing here?'
'You may well ask,' said the champion morosely, pouring wine into two horn cups. 'Sit down and have a drink. I'm here because of this blasted broken leg. What brings you to the back of beyond?'
Not that he listened. He was an addict deprived of his drug talk --and once started, it seemed nothing could stop his flow. He had broken his leg in a fall three months before at an unimportant little tourney in Carlisle. Not his sort of thing at all –a piddling little local affair, not even licensed---but seeing he was there and it was going on, well, he entered, just to keep his hand in. His girth broke and down he went just after unhorsing and vanquishing Bertran de Soulis, son of Lord Rainard. Sir Bertran had chivalrously insisted Sir Turlo be his guest until he was fit again, when he could collect his ransom and rejoin the tourney circuit at his pleasure.
'It's taken much longer than I expected,' said the champion. 'But I think it's really on the mend now. Another two or three weeks, and with the blessing, I'll be on my way at last.' He had missed the great tourney at Edinburgh, alas, which was just a few days ago. That was where Sir Bertran had gone, leaving him bored and kicking his heels. 'Well, not actually kicking them, do you see, in the circumstances, but I can't sit a horse yet, and there's nothing to do here, and no one to talk to.'
In a corner, Sir Bertran's hawk, loaned to his guest, glowered on its perch and loosed a dropping which splattered on the floor. ‘Let her hobble about a bit outside and fly her at ducks and pigeons, but it's clumsy like this, and she resents me, the creature!' He had moved to the gatehouse when his friend departed. 'It's quieter. The men make more row day and night than pigs at trough! And there's that creepy little fellow upstairs. I'd rather be as far as I can get from him.'
'Who's that?'
'Some old madman Lord Rainard looks after. An Arab, for God's sake! A scholar, they tell me. Bertran wouldn't go anywhere near him, and I've never even clapped eyes on him. He lives in the top chamber in the tower. I couldn't get up all those steps even if I wanted to, which I don't, and anyway, he's an infidel, so he is.'
'They told me below that Soulis is not here.'
'Lord Rainard's with the king.'
'In Edinburgh?'
'Wherever the king is--Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Roxburgh, Stirling---and he has his demesne, Soulistoun, but I've no idea where he is right now.'’
'Then I must go on,' said Straccan, putting his cup down.
'Unless you can put me up for the night?'
'Ah, sure, you'll not be leaving now, not with night coming and the fairies about! Stay the night and go on in the morning,' cried the hospitable invalid. 'There's been no human being to talk to since Bertran left.' He crutched to the door where an iron triangle hung and rattled at it with a short iron bar. The clanging resulted in the emergence from the main hall on to the outside stair opposite, of the garrison captain, a burly sloven holding aloft a torch.
'What d'ye lack?' he bellowed.
'Sir Richard will stay the night,' FitzCarne bawled back across the yard. 'Bring another mattress over, and blankets. And supper for two.'
'Thank you,' said Straccan. Now he would have time to search.