Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  ‘That I will. Go back to Berwick and take your troop of cowardly sluggards with you.’

  Without a backward glance Carey spurred his horse and charged down the lane towards the village. The narrow street was thick with ruffianly marauders rounding up cattle and breaking into cottages. Some of the homesteads had already been looted and set alight. To give heart to the villagers he shouted and fired his pistol into the throng. The raiders numbered at least fifty. He could see them plainly in their steel bonnets, but gave no thought to the danger of attacking them single-handed. He had not led a charge since the siege of Rouen. His temper had cooled and the night air panted against his cheek like his wife’s breath on the couch that afternoon.

  When he drew his sword the raiders turned their horses’ heads and he knew that his own men had followed him. The clamour grew. The men from Berwick must be following. Now he could hear his brother’s voice urging them on. He smiled to himself. John had not wished to be branded a coward.

  The scuffle lasted little more than a couple of tense minutes. There were pistols and swords and lances on both sides, but the raiders had no stomach for a fight with soldiers.

  ‘Take their leader,’ Carey shouted above the confusion as they ran. ‘Take him alive.’

  ‘There he goes,’ shouted a villager. ‘That’s Geordie Bourne.’

  ‘No, that’s him,’ screamed a woman, pointing to another.

  The Scotsmen were scattering rapidly. The clouds, scudding before the wind, brought them the shelter of darkness while they sought sanctuary in the woods nearby. Slashing with his sword edge, Carey galloped in pursuit of the horseman identified by the woman: a tall figure in cloak and hat, well mounted and riding fast.

  At full stretch they soon outrode the others, heading north along a rough track through the woods. The horses were evenly matched. The other rider knew his way, but Carey was not to be outrun. Yet, try as he might, he could not draw abreast. His temper rose again. Fuming, he cursed himself for having fired his pistol.

  They crossed the Tweed and he grew uneasy. They were in Scotland now, outside his jurisdiction. The thought of having to abandon the chase spurred him to a last endeavour. The rider ahead was tiring at last and with a spurt Carey drew almost level. The man half-turned in the saddle and while his glance was distracted an overhanging branch took off his hat. A jerk on the reins momentarily slackened his horse’s pace.

  Carey took his opportunity. Pulling the pistol from his belt and grasping it by the muzzle, he brought the handle down with a fierce crack on the man’s skull.

  They fell to the ground together. Carey jumped to his feet immediately, throwing the pistol down and reaching for his sword. He found no one to fight. His quarry lay insensible. He knelt and felt underneath for the man’s heart. It was beating strongly. Then he turned the body over and discovered that Geordie Bourne had escaped him. His disappointment was brief. Although not Bourne’s, the face was familiar.

  He stood, sword in hand, considering whether to despatch the felon. The Border law of ‘hot trod’ permitted him to kill a raider pursued across the frontier, but it would be a sin to take the life of an unconscious man and a personal affront to King James to execute one of his officers without a trial. He sheathed his sword reluctantly, caught both horses, hitched them together, mounted his own and turned for home.

  2

  Carey’s lieutenant met him outside the village.

  ‘We have been searching for you, captain,’ he said anxiously. ‘Are you wounded?’

  ‘I am well,’ Carey told him, relieved to have found his way back.

  ‘So you killed your man?’ The lieutenant nodded towards the second horse, which Carey led riderless.

  ‘The rogue escaped, but not unscathed. I have been on a fool’s chase - he proved not to be Bourne. Have you found him here? Is he taken? Tell me that, and how many of his men with him.’

  ‘Six killed and eleven captured. That is the reckoning. Bourne is among those taken. I rode him down myself. This is a night to be remembered in the marches.’

  ‘Thanks be to God.’ Carey lifted his face to the sky, then grasped the other’s hand. ‘You shall be well rewarded,’ he promised. ‘Show me the villain. Is he unharmed?’

  ‘He is bruised - nothing more. We trussed him to his horse’s back and your brother has carried him off to Berwick.’

  ‘My brother. How dare he steal my prisoner!’ Carey’s joy melted into anger. The black wrath inherited from his father choked in his throat and he could barely utter the curses which supplanted the thanksgiving to God on his lips.

  ‘Be easy, captain,’ the lieutenant implored him.

  ‘If Bourne was your prisoner, then he is mine.’

  ‘Sir John acknowledges as much. I would not otherwise have parted with him. Your brother has sworn to lodge him in the gaol and order the Provost Marshal to dispose of him as you think fit.’

  ‘He should have been brought to Norham.’ Carey would not be appeased.

  ‘Norham is unsafe. Kerr could raise three hundred men and rescue him by dawn.’

  It was true. Through the Queen’s parsimony, Norham’s ancient walls gaped with disrepair like an old man’s jaw.

  ‘Then we will ride direct to Berwick and make certain that my brother keeps his word. It is unlike him to be so obliging.’

  ‘His behaviour is proper.’ The lieutenant stressed the first word and smiled. Carey laughed, his anger gone.

  ‘Mine is proper too when I choose, but there is fame in taking Geordie Bourne. I would have expected Sir John to keep it for himself.’

  ‘There is danger too. The villagers are waiting for you. Already they are begging for Bourne’s release. He shouted to them before I could stop his pox-ridden mouth. He promised them protection from further raids if he were set free.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘He threatened death to every man, woman and child if harm should come to him.’

  ‘These peasants cannot afford his protection. Do they believe it will cost them nothing? If they pay him blackmail, how will they pay the landlord his rent? Did my brother not tell them that?’

  ‘He told them that they enjoyed the protection of your wardenship. As to Bourne’s life or death the decision would be yours.’

  ‘If they are still awake, let me speak to them now.’ Into the darkness of the village street the peasants brought torches in response to his summons. They clustered round his horse and clutched at the bridle and reins, pleading for Geordie Bourne’s life as though he were a beloved brother or son. Carey, his face dark as the night, held up his hand to quieten them.

  ‘Give me silence and I will tell you what will happen to this animal who has robbed and plundered for so long. In the morning he will be tried under the laws of the Border. As a notorious outlaw, he will not be tried for theft alone - stealing your oxen and cows and horses this night is but one of many crimes. Geordie Bourne will be tried on a charge of march treason. If he is innocent he will go free. If he is found guilty, the penalty is death and by God’s grace I will have him hanged. Tomorrow you may come to Berwick and see his body swinging in the breeze and know that there hangs one Scottish raider who will never plague you more.’

  To his fury, cries of despair greeted his words. ‘For all our sakes, captain,’ an old woman wailed, ‘grant this poor creature the Queen’s mercy.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘His death will start a feud.’

  ‘The Border is riddled with feuds. One more will make no difference.’

  ‘But this time the Scottish warden himself will take vengeance on us. Bourne is near and dear to him.’

  ‘You will have my protection always,’ Carey assured them. ‘Where would you have been tonight without me?’

  ‘Tell us how you can protect us every night,’ the old woman cried. ‘How can even you guard us if the Scottish warden rides against us?’

  ‘What I have done tonight I will do again. If the Scottish warden is taken bloody-handed on th
is side of the Border, be sure that I shall hang him too. Whether the villain is low-born or high, justice will be done, and I will gladly answer for it to my prince and his. This I swear to you before God.’

  Before they could dispute further, Carey ordered one man to bring his spare horse to Norham in the morning. Then he left them to sleep with their fears, and rode towards Berwick and the dawn.

  ‘For all you say, captain,’ argued the lieutenant, riding by his side, ‘it were better not to hang this man. He will cause us more trouble dead than alive. Keep him as a hostage. That is my advice. Ransoms are better than feuds, and Sir Robert Kerr will pay a high price for his worthless skin.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Carey retorted, ‘do you believe this Bourne to be a murderer?’

  ‘Certainly I do, but it has to be proved.’

  ‘If it were, would you spare his life?’

  ‘Little proof will be needed for a Berwick jury to find him guilty. You and I know that, captain. He is a Bourne, and the Bournes are a family with a reputation every whit as evil as the Elliots and the Armstrongs and the rest of that base and beggarly crew from God-forsaken Liddesdale. His name will be thought evidence enough.’

  ‘Not for me and the Queen’s justice. If what you say is true. I will take steps to satisfy myself on the matter. Bourne and I have never met and I will be glad to make his acquaintance before it is too late.’

  They travelled the last mile in silence. Ahead the ramparts of the sleeping town loomed grey in the darkness. Wistfully Carey imagined the glory of capturing such a place by storm. Why had he not lived more than a hundred years before, when what seemed an impregnable fortress had fallen to Richard of Gloucester, then Lord of the North to his brother the King? And afterwards the march north to capture Edinburgh itself. To the veteran of the great battles at Barnet and Tewkesbury, these had been effortless victories, stamping the seal of his success on the Border, where generations of Percys, Nevilles and Dacres had failed. They had been marcher barons carving kingdoms for themselves, two-faced as the Kerrs. Richard Plantaganet was a true King’s lieutenant.

  As they rode, Carey brooded on a warden’s thankless office. To guard and govern. To command and judge. To be soldier, politician and diplomat in one. To be a lord of thieves and a master of spies. To have few men and little pay. In all the turbulent history of the Border, no one had rivalled Richard of Gloucester with his eleven-year rule of peace and justice. That was Carey’s ambition. He too was related to his sovereign. He too was fiercely loyal, implacably just.

  As soon as they entered the town, he ordered the night commander of the castle guard to lead them to the dungeon where Bourne had been confined. Food and rest could keep until later.

  ‘The man respects you, Sir Robert,’ said the commander. ‘He declares that he has heard how stout and valiant you are. He desires a meeting.’

  ‘I will meet him, but he is not to know who I am.’

  In the depths of the prison, Bourne was holding court among his downcast followers. In their quilted jackets and leather doublets they squatted, huddling together for warmth in a single damp cell. Faced with the long hours of night, their bravery had ebbed and some were whining already about feeling the nooses round their necks. The braggart Bourne was keeping their spirits alive with tales of daring by his father and brother Jock, Border heroes both. Yet the hangman had claimed them at last.

  After introducing Carey and the lieutenant as warden’s men, the commander left them. The lieutenant greeted Bourne and set a lantern in front of him. Carey passed him a jug of ale and sat himself on the floor among them. None of these Scotsmen from the Middle March had seen him before. With his mud-stained cloak and matted beard none would recognize him now as Captain of Norham, cousin to the English Queen.

  ‘What will be done with us?’ they demanded of the lieutenant. ‘We are men of peace, God-fearing folk, Borderers like yourselves. We ride at night only to find food for our families. How else can one keep alive in these wild parts? What hope do we have in the morning? Will your warden be merciful to us?’

  The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and Carey studied their faces from the shadows. What mercy had they shown to those they plundered?

  ‘The deputy warden is not a merciful man,’ he told them. ‘He is stern and strict, mindful only of innocence or guilt.’

  ‘We are innocent,’ several of them cried, but Geordie Bourne was not among them.

  ‘How can that be?’ demanded the lieutenant. ‘You were taken in the very act of pillage. The Marshal of Berwick and all his men can bear witness to it.’

  ‘Speak to your captain for us,’ one of them begged. ‘Tell him what kind of men we are. God’s creatures like himself. Would he have us stay in the wastes of our land and starve?’

  ‘Tell us what message you desire sent to our captain and it shall be delivered.’ Carey spoke, addressing Bourne man to man. ‘You are the leader. Are you without guilt?’

  Bourne emptied the jug of ale down his throat, wiped his mouth and loosed a defiant belch in the direction where Norham lay.

  ‘You may tell him that scores will be settled for this night’s treachery. Our comrades who were killed will be avenged. Your warden is a bastard scapegrace come to molest us. Englishmen will pay with their lives for what he has done. There will be such a feud that our grandchildren and greatgrandchildren will not see the end of it.’

  ‘So that is your message, and you expect him to spare your life?’

  ‘Tell him I respect his valour but not his person nor his office. Yet, however bold, he will not dare touch a hair of any of our heads. Be sure of that. We shall make ourselves as comfortable here as we may until our own warden arranges an exchange with English captives. That is the custom. No English warden would venture to hang Geordie Bourne and his men. If he did, there would be, not a feud, but war. War throughout the marches from Berwick to Carlisle. Would his Queen thank him for that or our Jamie boy?’ This time he belched in Carey’s face.

  ‘You are thieves,’ said Carey evenly, ‘not prisoners of war. If the Scottish wardens hold English thieves, they may hang them and good riddance.’

  ‘You and your master are not Borderers. That is easy to tell. In a poor country there are no honest men. Here every man lives by what he can get for himself. There is but one difference: between Scots and English.’

  ‘Do you confess then to being a thief?’

  ‘We Bournes do not confess. We boast of it. I have lived by theft these past twenty years, as all the Border knows. I was brought up a thief and challenge you to show me one more skilled at his trade. The Church has its Holy Trinity. I have mine. They are Stealing, Drinking and Whoring. If any man has stood in my path I have cut him down. If any woman, I have tumbled her.’

  ‘Murder and rape as well as theft,’ breathed Carey between his teeth. ‘How many women have you forced?’

  ‘I keep a tally,’ Bourne bragged, ‘and if there is a man who claims to have forced more he is a liar. In all I have lain with forty-nine men’s wives against their will, some on this side of the Border, some on that. In this one respect I make no difference between Scots and English. Some offer more resistance, that is all, and the harder they struggle, the sweeter the joy. Tonight I should have enjoyed my fiftieth and, as I hoped, my choicest yet. You had best warn your captain to guard his wife close, otherwise I may scale his castle wall and sample what goods his own dear lady has to surrender. They say she is so well worth a tumble that his fancy for her cost him the Queen’s favour.’

  Bourne was a strong man, but Carey leapt to his feet determined to strangle the wretch there and then with his own hands. The choler of the Careys choked him for a second time that night, and he struggled with his own lieutenant who held him back while the Scots felons jeered at them.

  ‘How many men have you killed?’ the lieutenant demanded of Bourne, when he had persuaded his captain to resume his place.

  ‘Seven with my own hand. All of them English ne’er-do-wells.’


  Carey rose to his feet again, the light of the lantern dancing in his eyes.

  ‘Enough,’ cried the lieutenant in haste and banged on the door for the guard. ‘Our captain will not be unaware of what you have said.’

  ‘As God lives he will have you tried in the morning,’ shouted Carey before the lieutenant could push him through the door. ‘If any of you are Christians, a minister will be ordered to visit you for the comfort of our souls.’

  ‘Tell your brave captain not to run away,’ Bourne shouted back. ‘If I am not here to settle with him, he will soon find that Kerr of Cessford will settle on my behalf.’

  ‘Is Sir Robert Kerr privy to your raids then?’ Carey halted as he crossed the threshold.

  ‘He is my good friend. Be sure to give that message to your captain. If he is not quite lost in pride he will hesitate before making blood enemies of the Kerrs. Tell him how, when Mary our Queen sent a message to Jedburgh rebuking them, they made her messenger eat it in front of all the citizens. They are folk who do not fear their own prince.’

  Upstairs in the guard room, Carey gave his orders brusquely. All the prisoners were to be put on trial without delay. For this purpose a jury was to be summoned at first light. He himself would not attend the trial. The lieutenant would give evidence after the Marshal’s men and return to waken him as soon as the verdict had been given.

  A hardened campaigner, Garey could sleep at will wherever he lay. After the enterprise of the night he slept deeply in the commander’s room. The ride from Norham, the quarrel with his brother, his lone assault on the raiders, the pursuit into Scotland, the return to the village, the ride to Berwick and the parley in the dungeon were all forgotten. His conscience lay untroubled by qualms about the men whose souls he had decided to release from their bodies and commit to God’s keeping.

  The verdict came in the morning early, and with it a message from his brother. All eleven had been found guilty of the capital offence of march treason, and Sir John was demanding his immediate presence in the governor’s quarters. He stretched himself and returned a respectfully phrased promise of attendance, asking only for time to complete some urgent and important business. As he had expected, his brother did not mistake his meaning and hurried to see him.