I am hanging, half-sleeping, when the door opens. The light is like a dagger. I have to squeeze my eyes shut, even though there is just one single candle flame flickering outside. “So,” says a voice, “you finally see the inside of Lancaster Castle for yourself, Mistress Garth. It is a sorry thing to encounter you so.”
“Captain Foreman…” Awkwardly I unhook my cramped arms from the rings.
“I told them there was no call to put you in here. I’m afraid they take a severe line on treason, Lord Allysson’s men do.” He helps me out into the passage.
“Wait!” I stumble, blinking, and stop him from shutting the door behind me. “Please, shine your candle…”
He doesn’t understand what I mean, so I take his candle from him, and shine it into the cell. Somehow I have to have a picture of this place to take with me, to know where I was, all this time. The tiny room is black, crusted, alive with running things: beetles, cockroaches, spiders. Behind a filthy heap in a corner a larger shape shifts, but the rats are mostly in hiding. I wonder if they can climb the walls, to come and go as they do through the grille.
I give Captain Foreman his candle back, and try to walk, but my legs give way. With a faint look of revulsion, Captain Foreman offers me his arm.
“I did not think to see you again,” I stutter foolishly. “I thought you had gone home.”
He leads me up a stone staircase to a small room. “I’m on secondment until this case is cleared up.” He holds the door open for me to enter. “There has obviously been some confusion. Sir Edward Clough says he released you on bail, on the Bishop of Carlisle’s recognizance, to appear at the Martinmas Assizes here in Lancaster. No one thought to tell me this, and in the confusion of the changeover of troops, no one told Captain Leahy either. So you have a little stay of execution, Mistress Garth. I am to escort you back to Barrowbeck, from where you are not to travel more than a distance of two miles in any direction. We will leave a man there to guard you. In November, Lord Allysson’s men will return for you.”
I stare at him. I am suddenly conscious of how I must look – half-dressed and filthy. “How long was I in the dungeon?” I ask him.
“A day and a half. About thirty-six hours.”
“Do you know how to tell the time by the clock, captain? I was just learning, before all this happened.”
He looks bemused. “I do, madame. I am sorry to think that all the things you might have learnt and achieved in your life are come to naught. That makes me very sad.”
“Aye, and me also.”
“Sir Edward says you are a silly girl, easily led, and well nigh simple. I do not think I believe him. You do understand that you must not try to abscond, do you not? By standing trial, particularly with the sympathy which Sir Edward obviously has for you, you have a chance of clearing all this up.”
“Or of being burnt at the stake.”
He looks away. We are both silent for a moment, then he asks, “Were you fed at all when you were downstairs?”
“No. I saw no one.”
“That is regrettable. I apologise. I will have some food brought to you now, and then we will ride northwards.”
He leaves, and locks me in. I sit down and stare round the little room, which contains only a table, three chairs and some unwashed dishes, yet which feels like paradise compared with where I have been. I realise that I am indeed weak from hunger. I pick a fragment of some unidentifiable foodstuff off one of the plates, and eat it. It is a tiny, dried flake of rabbit. Something strange happens then. For a moment I have the sensation of being once again in the hermit’s cottage in the woods, where Robert and I spent so much time – indeed it flashes before my eyes so vividly that for a moment I do not know where I am. It is obviously the taste of rabbit which has done it, and yet, Robert spent months in here, as he spent months in the hermit’s cottage. I wonder if something of a person’s presence might permeate, and stay, after they are gone. I sit down again, light-headed, aware that I am being fanciful. Captain Foreman returns with a plate of bread and cheese, and when I have eaten it all, we go out into the sunshine.
Chapter 34
After the underground cold, the day’s heat is like a furnace blast. One of Captain Foreman’s men is waiting for us with three horses. When he turns, I see with dismay that it is Victor.
“You remember Victor?” Captain Foreman enquires cheerily. “He has volunteered to guard you at Barrowbeck. He has a kinswoman who lives somewhere nearby.”
“How kind of him.” I glare at Victor. “And who might your kinswoman be, Victor?”
He looks affronted at the contemptuous familiarity with which I address him, and I realise that I may be storing up trouble for myself, but cannot bring myself to care. “I believe you are acquainted with her, lady. She also once guarded you. Mistress Brissenden of Hagditch is my aunt.”
I almost groan aloud. “Well doubtless your aunt will be glad of your support and comfort,” I tell him through gritted teeth, “since she was so lately fastened in the stocks and pelted with refuse. It is most noble of you to advertise your relationship, considering she is so disgraced.”
Victor glowers, and seems about to speak, but I turn my back and ask Captain Foreman, without bothering to lower my voice, “Was there truly no one else to take on this guarding duty, captain? Would you not care to do it yourself? We are most hospitable up in the West Moorland.”
The captain regards me for a moment. “Madame, this behaviour of yours does you no good. You must learn to be less trouble and more compliant. Now, shall we set off?”
The horse they have provided for me looks as if it should have retired a decade ago. It is bow-legged, and its sidesaddle is frayed and lopsided. Even so, my spirits lift a little as we ride down Castle Hill, towards the outskirts of town. I have a further idea of how I must look, when people point, and one old woman says to another, “She’ll be a witch, I daresay.”
“God bless you, mistress,” I murmur to her graciously, and the two of them scurry away.
I feel I know this route well now, as we pass Weary Wall, then Green Ayre with its clattering watermill. The humid weather has intensified and the sky has clouded over. There is a feeling of thunder in the air as we cross the arched bridge out of town. Captain Foreman rides ahead of me, and Victor behind. I wonder about making a run for it, but the two of them are armed with swords and matchlocks, and their horses look fit and fast. I would stand no chance of getting away.
“Was anyone badly injured in the fighting at Mere Point?” I ask Captain Foreman.
He turns in his saddle. “Several of Lord Allysson’s men had arrow wounds. One was killed. I also heard that some local healer was in a fairly bad way, but likely to recover.”
Cedric. Fear coils in my gut like a snake. Cedric must not die. I love him myself, but even more importantly, my mother must not be robbed of Cedric when she has so recently lost her sister, and now may be going to lose me. “And the mistress of the house?” I ask him. “I think she was also injured.”
“I don’t rightly know. It can’t have been fatal, anyhow, or I’d have heard. You’ll be able to see for yourself soon. I’m sure Victor will be happy to escort you over to Mere Point.” He looks round again. “Won’t you, Victor?”
Victor does not reply.
In the villages, people come out to watch us go by. We pass the pedlar, travelling south with his two donkeys, as we ride through Kerne Forth. He gapes at us, and calls out, “Greetings, mistress!”
“Stop! Wait!” I call to him. “Have you any news from Mere Point?” but Victor whacks his sword across my horse’s rump, sending the poor beast skittering forward so that I am almost unseated.
“Get on!” he snarls. He waves his sword menacingly at the pedlar. “Get out of my sight, layabout.”
The pedlar jabs his heels at his donkey’s ribs. “Aye sir, steady on there. I’m going.” Above the jangling of pots and pans strapped to his second donkey, I hear his faint words, “None dead at Mere Point, mistress!” a
nd something else, which I can’t quite make out.
A storm seems to be building now. The sky is dark ahead, and thunder rumbles in the clouds. Around us, the light has a yellow, indoor strangeness. I reflect on the prospect of being held prisoner in my own home, by Victor. It will be intolerable. It will be far worse than when my father locked me in. Victor will enjoy humiliating me at every opportunity. I wonder if escape will be possible, perhaps through the secret passage under the barmkin, but when I glance back at Victor’s grim face I realise that his vigilance is likely to be unwavering. I want to weep and bang my head against the trees.
We make good time, and reach the boggy edges of Mistholme Moss by early afternoon. Herons stand motionless in the reed beds, waiting for the storm. The tension in the air is like a strung bow. Lightning flashes. The rocks on our left glow in the intensified light. Thunder crashes very loud and close. Two hares leap from the bracken and bound away across the hill. In the distance, dogs bark.
“We’ll take the way through the woods,” calls Captain Foreman over his shoulder. “There’s going to be a downpour.” He speeds up. “Come along, Mistress Garth. You’re ill-clad for a cloudburst.”
Lightning flashes again, several times in quick succession, and the thunder that follows is so loud that it hurts my head. The horses are getting jittery. Behind me, Victor keeps up a vicious grumbling, telling me I’d be better off to be struck by lightning, because I’ll be back in that dungeon soon. We take the Barrowbeck path at a fast trot. It is so dark where the trees meet overhead that it is difficult to see at all. We cut through Barrow Wood towards Barrowbeck Tower, and I suddenly notice a smell of burning, as if there had been a lightning strike. I slow down and look about me, then call to Captain Foreman, “We might have to go the other way. I think the woods could be on fire.” He sniffs, and raises his hand to show that he has heard me.
As far as I can judge, the main storm seems to be heading out over the bay. A few big raindrops splatter on to our faces, then the downpour begins. At once the temperature drops. Captain Foreman leads us on to a smaller path where it is more sheltered. The thick foliage protects us a little, but rain collects amongst the leaves and slides in cold draughts down our backs. This is the path I used to take home from the hermit’s cottage. I shiver, suddenly filled with a vivid recollection of Robert’s presence there.
At last we reach the edge of the clearing where my home stands. I feel overcome with emotion at the sight of it. The storm is moving away now. Somewhere dogs are still barking – in fact strangely it sounds as if the barking is coming from the tower, though we do not normally keep dogs. Apart from that, there is only the sound of the rain battering the leaves. I halt my horse. Something is wrong. The valley is not normally so quiet, even in the pouring rain. Why are the sheep not calling, the pigs not grunting, the cowherds not shouting and whistling?
Victor nearly ran into the back of me when I stopped, and now he is cursing me. “It’ll be the stake for you, madam, oh yes it will. That’s for certain, the stake. A good job too. Treason, it’s a bloody disgrace, and you can’t even ride a bloody horse properly neither…”
I try not to be overwhelmed by sheer misery at the prospect of being locked up with Victor. My hair is drenched and hanging over my face; my clothes are sodden; the filth from the dungeon floor is running off me in rivulets. I can no longer even bring myself to turn round and retort. Then suddenly there is another sound, above the noise of rain. It begins quietly and grows, until it fills the valley, a harsh, blaring bleat, repeated and repeated, even before each echo has died away. My hair prickles on my scalp. I wave my hand behind me at Victor, to stop his blathering. It could be something else. I try to tell myself it is something else – the wind round the tower walls, or seabirds calling – but I know it is not. There is only one thing which sounds like that.
I look up. Remnants of black smoke are straggling from the beacon turret, where the downpour extinguished the warning fire. A smell of burning pitch is in the air. The chilling, unmusical blasts go on and on. It is the ram’s-horn, kept in a niche in the tower’s gatehouse, and only ever blown for one purpose: to warn that the Scots are invading. We have innocently wandered into the middle of a Scottish raid.
There is just time for me to feel crushingly disappointed. No more raids, he said. No more raids. Oh Robert. Is this his unstoppable Cousin Duncan, or some other border-raiding family, over which he has no control? I draw breath to tell Captain Foreman and Victor to run for their lives, but as I do so, the first Scots ride quietly out of the woods behind us.
I whip up my poor, decrepit horse and try to make it gallop towards the tower, but it is no good. The terrified animal stumbles, panics and throws me to the ground. At once the Scots are all over me. They are hot and sweating, and their patterned woollen draperies smell like wet sheep. I struggle to get at my knife, then remember it was taken from me at the castle. I catch a glimpse of Captain Foreman being overwhelmed, then Victor being neatly toppled from his horse.
A voice shouts, “Surrender, Englishmen, and you won’t be hurt. Stay still, ye daft fools.” I try to sit up from where I have fallen. Dear God, I know that voice. Inexplicably, one of the Scots assists me with his hand under my elbow. I look amongst the unfamiliar faces, old and young, bearded and clean-shaven, many of them milling about on foot now, as they overcome the two sword-wielding English soldiers. Surely Robert would not have betrayed me to this extent, to take part in a raid again himself. Then I see him, astride a sleek grey horse. He is changed. It is the old Robert back again, his hazel eyes bright and fierce, his lips drawn back in a smile.
“It’s plain to see that you Englishmen don’t know how to behave in the company of women,” he says, and jumps down next to me. I stare at him, and he picks me up and lifts me into his saddle. “Just returning a wee favour,” he says softly, and jumps up behind me. “It might be advisable to scream, sweetheart,” he adds under his breath, “for the sake of appearances.” His hands come round me and gather up the reins.
Obediently, I manage a small scream.
They leave Captain Foreman and Victor tied to a juniper tree, back to back. Robert holds me tightly as we gallop away down the valley. His horse is fast and strong, and carries us both with ease. “I had word of what happened to you,” he says against my ear. “We set off straight away, and rode through the night.”
We see no one on our way past the Pike. Everyone has run to the pele towers, waiting for an attack which will not come. Then, at the crossroads, where the coast road leaves Barrowbeck, I see Cedric, standing with a basket of herbs in his hands and a bandage round his head. He has drawn back into the protection of a rocky outcrop, to shelter from the Scots. We are almost past him before he sees me, but then he comes rushing out shouting, “Beatrice!”
“Wait!” I grip Robert’s hand on the reins, and he slows down and wheels his horse, letting the rest of his companions gallop by. Cedric approaches, leading his white mare. Robert’s horse fidgets, not caring to be left behind.
Cedric, the Cockleshell Man, my teacher to whom I have been such a disappointing pupil, stops and looks up at us. “Are you all right?” he asks me.
I nod. “I am now. Are you all right, Cedric? Is your head badly hurt?”
“Aye, but it’s healing. You look well enough, Robert.”
“I thank you for it. We must go. It willnae be good if you’re seen talking to us.”
“No.” Cedric reaches into his basket and brings out a sprig of herb-of-grace. “For blessing,” he says, “and a safe journey.”
So we ride north, with Robert’s warm body at my back and his breath in my hair. We travel fast for a long time, only stopping to rest when the horses become exhausted. We cross mountain passes, ford rivers and wend through pine forests. I realise that the borderland is familiar to me now. I know the way there, and I know the way back. Our part of the border is safer than perhaps it has ever been, and there are people I love on either side of it.
Cedric wi
ll explain all to my mother, and no doubt I shall be able to meet with her, and with other members of my family, at Castle Clough. I may even be able to visit Barrowbeck, once the troops have changed again.
As for John, I cannot think about him. It is too painful. I can only tell myself that he deserves better than me.
So I ride into the unknown with Robert’s arms around me. I drift in and out of sleep, wrapped in a Scottish blanket and securely held astride this unfamiliar saddle. When I sleep, I dream of the dungeon, and jump awake in terror. Robert kisses my neck and says, “Poor girl, poor girl, oh God, they put you in that dungeon.” Sometimes I do not know if I am dreaming or awake, and I seem to have a fever, although my wet clothes have long since dried on me inside this warm blanket.
When we stop for a rest, deep in the forest, I meet Robert’s father, brothers and Cousin Duncan. I am afraid of them at first, because of how they look, armed with so many weapons and dressed in their green and earth-coloured woollen cloth and goatskin coats, the clothing of the enemy. I cannot understand all that the older men say to me, even though they speak slowly for my benefit. We toast oatcakes on sticks over a fire of pine branches, whilst overhead the forest echoes with owls. “We shouldn’t stop for long,” says Robert. “There may be pursuers – your family or the military.”
“My family will understand that I have to go away, Robert. Cedric will talk to them. He will tell them I am all right.”
He wraps two more blankets round me and props a fallen log at my back. Unfamiliar fungus, pale and fleshlike, is growing from it. I feel I am in a dream, or in some place not of this world.
“I’m not so sure you are all right, my Bea,” Robert says. “You’re shivering. I think you’ve caught a fever.” He calls across the clearing, “We’d best get on, Father.”
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