by Alex Dylan
Three terrified women stood in the doorway of the upper floor. The attack had happened so quickly, they had only half-pulled up the access ladder. Heughan recognised Maxwell’s wife; she was clutching her girls to her side and screaming open-mouthed at him, terror in her eyes; scared, yes, but there was also a malicious hatred, a desire for revenge. Some of the reiving women were more terrifying than the men. They were resourceful women used to rough ways, hard men, the blade and blood.
Heughan looked at her just long enough for her to understand that he was in control and things would be done his way. She absorbed the look and stepped back.
“Calm now,” he shouted at her, “I say he can keep his eyes; for now.”
Billy barely glanced at his mother before throwing Kerr to the ground. He drooped, half bent, using a sword to hold himself up, utterly exhausted.
“Right, Billy, where’s your old man?” asked Heughan.
“The Lord Warden took him last night,” replied Billy.
“What fer?”
“Fer killing the Kerr boy.”
“That’s none of his business. We take care of that, the interfering bastard! Has he never heard of ‘hot trod’? That’s our right, our tradition, not his; the fucking incomer! It’s nothing to do with him,” ranted Heughan, as much to himself as to Billy.
Heughan went quiet, staring at his own thoughts. Don’t make a custom and don’t break a custom. Why would Ross Middlemore bother to interfere now?
Jackie stood next to Heughan, dripping in blood. “Yours or someone else’s?” said Heughan, looking at him with concern.
“Not mine, I’m all right,” said Jackie. “What did you mean, ‘he can keep his eyes’?” he asked.
“Don’t you know, boy? Have you not heard the ballad? How old are you?”
Jackie looked blankly at him.
“He’s not heard me sing ‘Tam Lin’,” Heughan called to Hamish.
“Lucky bastard,” replied Hamish.
“Old Man Kerr saw the faeries, lad,” Heughan told Jackie. “Someone will have his eyes out one of these days; either that or the faeries will cast him to the devil. Kerr’s luck won’t hold for ever but that’s still no reason to let the Maxwells have him just now.”
La’l Willie pulled up alongside him. “I counted eight dead, none of them ours; a couple of Kerr’s tho’. Who’s that in the brook?” asked Willie.
“The Carruthers boys,” replied Heughan.
“Well, looks like you had a good morning. Will I round up the cattle?” said Willie brightly.
Heughan looked at the sky; the sky looked down on him and darkened.
“No, we’re all right, come on, let’s away,” said Heughan, sparing the briefest of glances for Kerr before turning his back on him to mount Aluino.
Old Man Kerr still had some fight left in him. “Heughan,” he yelled, “this isn’t the end of it. Lord Warden or no, I have the right of hot trod. You’re my man.”
Heughan barely turned his head to speak over his shoulder, “Fuck you, Kerr. I’m no man but my own.” He clicked his heels to move Aluino forwards.
Kerr grabbed a dropped lance from the ground and speared a turf on it. He thrust it into the embers of one of the fire arrows and set it alight. “Heughan! You bastard whoreson!” he screamed hoarsely, brandishing the blazing turf aloft. “Hot trod!” The screech of a solitary hawk mocked him. Heughan kept on riding. Kerr pushed the lance angrily into the ground and spat at the base of his makeshift standard, where gobbets of heavy rain landed alongside in a sympathetic commentary.
* * *
Hard rain had continued to stripe the earth with raw, wet wheals for most of the day, making the ride to Maryport tedious. Heughan counted himself lucky that he had a fine horse with the good sense to find his own way. He hooked one knee over the pommel to ease up his injured leg but it jarred with every step that Aluino took, and Heughan was out of sorts when finally he reached the fishermen’s huts on the quayside.
He breathed in the pungent undercurrents of salted fish and oak smoke, the smell of coiled hempen rope, the sea breeze in linen sailcloth, and felt better. The light was fading fast and his boat wasn’t yet in the shelter of the harbour. He saw her riding the waves a little way off, bobbing up and down but moving steadily towards him under the shrouds of a tattered sky. The old jetty moaned warningly, big waves slapped themselves hard against the salted timbers. There’ll be rain on the decks, making them slippery, he thought. He strained for sign of the big man and the crew, wanting to reassure himself they were well. They were too far distant still for him to see clearly. He trusted their skills, trusted his instinct.
Aluino chewed the bit impatiently. Heughan turned towards the shelter of the ‘Sailor’s Return’ inn and stables, promising a good feed for both of them while they waited for Captain McGuire to complete the crossing. He thought of thick mutton stew with soft brown bread and clipped Aluino into a trot.
The stables were warm and dry. Heughan flipped the ostler a small coin to feed Aluino and rub him down. The horse snickered contentedly. Heughan settled to eat his stew in silence and waited for company, which never came.
An hour or so later, with a fuller belly but still hungry for progress, Heughan trekked back to the jetty. A greedy wind was inhaling the spindrift and breathing it back out over the land, making rain fall as heavy mist. The tide had turned before the cog had made it to shore. She rode at anchor, treading water. There’s no forcing the sea, he thought.
Guttering lanterns hung outside the huddle of huts at the water’s edge. Heughan took one and walked back around the curve of the bay. He waved it at the cog, seeking an answering response: Nothing. The river oozed slowly into the sea at this point of the shore, waiting to offload the waste and offal of Maryport’s wet industry into the gracious covering of the tide’s next embrace. Fish heads stared at him with silvered dead eyes, and the cradles of plundered mussel shells cupped in empty supplication against the crushing of his feet. Heughan slithered uncertainly and went down on his injured leg, gashing it against the razors of the mussel edges. He brushed off the clinging seaweed and ignored the fresh trickle of blood, limping further along the outlet, waving the lantern seaward. This time he saw an answering light.
Peering into the darkness, he could just make out a row boat straining for the shore. He started to wade through the pounding of the surf, twisting unsteadily on his injured leg as the white horses charged him again and again. The water was almost chest high when the boat crashed from behind a wave, nearly knocking him down. He grabbed at the side of it, banging the lantern against the boards. Two pairs of hands hauled him up; he cried out involuntarily as his leg was scraped over the side of the rough planking. Anxious faces thrust Heughan’s own lantern into his face. He looked past them, searching for someone he didn’t see. “Where’s Mac?” he asked.
“At the helm,” said a curly-headed stranger. “He wouldn’t risk it to us. Said the Maryport mermaids needed his lullaby to soothe the sea.”
Heughan smiled. That’s Mac all right, he thought. Full of his sailor’s superstitions.
“What happened to your leg?” said the other, holding the lantern over Heughan. Blood from the long gash of Melisande’s knife thrust was seeping through both the bandage and a rip in his trews.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Trouble with a woman.” He shaped a curvaceous outline with both hands, and the lads grinned at one another.
“I have to get back,” he said to them, pulling a bundle of letters from inside his jack. “Make sure Mac gets these to Carlingford. He’ll know what to do. Tell him I’ll see him next crossing.” He nodded to them and slipped back over the boat, paddling as flotsam tossed by the waves, until he found his feet and walked the last few yards to the beach.
The landlord didn’t make any comment as Heughan dripped through the inn door and wordlessly mounted the wooden stairs to a small room under the eaves. Heughan fell into an exhausted sleep, dreaming of gliding women with fish tails and silver dead eyes b
iting at his leg with their needle sharp teeth.
The next morning, his clothes were salt-stiff and grated against his skin as he tried to pull on his trews. He knew he would have to endure a few miles of being rubbed raw until he got enough ease back into them to make them comfortable. The small shuttered casement framed an empty seascape. The bay was calm and there was no sign of McGuire’s boat. Heughan smiled to himself. Perhaps Mac’s crooning seduced the sirens. He must have sailed with the turn of the tide. No matter, I’ll catch him next time, he thought.
He took a gentle pace along the coast road, occasionally looking out to sea, wanting some lingering trace of McGuire for reassurance. Heughan sat up in the saddle and stared at the horizon until his eyes burned. There was only the expanse of the sea itself. There were rumours that Ralegh was patrolling ships across the South West from his bailiwick of Jersey. Ralegh also held the monopoly on sweet wines, a tax that smugglers were keen to avoid. Rodrigues would know how to deal with Ralegh; he knew him of old. The mad Spaniard had survived the Armada shipwreck off Ireland, limping back after an infamous defeat that had made pirates of them both. Rodrigues had never returned to his homeland, and Heughan felt regret on his behalf.
Heughan rode through the empty dunes, staring across the endless rippling emptiness where the retreating tide pleated the Allonby Sands into ruffles, imploring the land to remember it as it faded out of site beyond the vanishing point. Like the sand, the land was his cradle, but he was shaped by the sea.
He strained against the horizon, hopeful of a glimpse of a new Armada sailing towards him, offering liberation. If an Irish invasion came, it would be unexpected, the coast undefended. Truthfully, the Solway coast needed no other protection when it was already guarded by wild unpredictability as jealous as a passionate woman wronged in love.
Melisande came to mind. Heughan thought back to the twisted story Rodrigues had told him mere nights ago. I thought I knew you, old man, and now it turns out you’ve been keeping secrets from me, Heughan mused. Again he remembered the package Melisande had given to Rodrigues. What else is there I don’t know? Heughan asked himself. Are you protecting me or hiding from me, Roddy?
At Abbeytown he turned inland, fording the same meandering river several times and skirting the fat edges of Lawrenceholme Wood until he reached ‘The Bird in Hand’ inn. He realised he hadn’t eaten since the previous night and pulled up hoping to find some food. The inn sat in solitude, like so many others in the Border landscape, but clearly did a brisk trade; Heughan judged by the scrubbed tables and tantalising smell of fresh cooking that met him as he dipped his head below the lintel. He loitered cautiously by the doorway until his eyes had adjusted to the inner gloom and he could better assess the occupants. He wouldn’t commit himself until he was certain and was surprised to see a familiar face sitting a few feet away.
“You’re a long way from home, Jon O’,” he said, pushing his hands firmly on top of the man’s shoulders in a not-so-friendly greeting, preventing him from rising.
“Piss off, Heughan, if you know what’s good for you,” said Jon O’ the Ward in reply.
“Well, that’s just not friendly, is it now?” joked Heughan. “Especially when I cut you such a good deal so recently.”
“I dunno what yer talkin’ about,” said Jon O’.
Heughan leaned in to him and said quietly, “You must think I’m soft, Jon O’, if you think I’d change my terms for a prettier face than yours.”
Jon O’ coloured slightly. “Wasn’t by choice. You want to think yersel’ lucky you only had the witch to deal with and not the paymaster,” he said morosely. “And if you don’t piss off right now, you’ll have them both together,” he added nastily.
“Meaning what?” said Heughan.
“Meaning that I’m not here for the rabbit pie on my own account, and I’m waiting for lord and lady nobby to finish their hunting so I can wait table for them,” gabbled Jon O’. “So there’ll be lean pickings for you here, lad, unless you suddenly turn highborn,” he taunted.
Heughan was thoughtful. “I thought Melisande said she was Ross’s chatelaine?”
“Aye, so she is,” said Jon O’ testily. Heughan frowned. Jon O’ smiled slyly, “Master Heughan can look as far as the foreign shore, yet still doesn’t see what’s right under his nose.”
He caught the way Heughan was glaring at him, saw him drop a hand to his dagger, “I could slice your nose right off for you, if you like,” said Heughan, fingering the blade. “It would stop you snivelling for one thing, and you wouldn’t be able to poke it into other people’s business for another.”
Jon O’ was cowed into servility, stumbling over an explanation, “I meant, she is his chatelaine but she isn’t just that. No, no, she’s not his lady wife, just his lady. No, not that sort of lady; not his lady, just a lady. Yes, that’s right,” he said, nodding agreement to himself, risking a look at Heughan’s eyes to check he had understood.
Heughan looked none the wiser, and his fingers were twitching over his throwing knives. Jon O’ took a deep breath and tried again, “Lady Melisande is Middlemore’s chatelaine but she’s not his wife…”
“Are you discussing me in a common tavern?” asked a haughty voice from the doorway. Jon O’ clamped his mouth shut and barked his shins on the table, trying to stand and scrape a bow at the same time. Heughan turned around to see Melisande’s dark silhouette slip from the framing brightness of the doorway. She looked very different from the last time he had seen her. She was dressed in hunting green with a velvet mantle, wearing hawking gauntlets. She carried a fine bird on her wrist, its head shrouded in a red hood. The jesses on its feet jingled as it turned its head jerkily, alert to confrontation. “And how exactly would you describe me, Jon O’ the Ward?” Melisande smiled like a knife.
Jon O’ mumbled under his breath, “My lady?”
“Good,” she said smoothly, stroking the hawk to soothe it, “and if you wish to continue in your employment, then it would be wise to keep your mouth shut, especially in front of a ragamuffin ruffian.”
“But you know Heughan…” Jon O’ started but was silenced abruptly with a glare from Melisande. He bowed again, happy to beat a hasty retreat to the kitchens.
“Get out of here,” she said to Heughan in a low voice. “Go around the long way. Ambrose Middlemore is on his way with the rest of the party. It wouldn’t do for you to be seen here with me. Jon has a loose tongue.”
“Perhaps you should relieve him of it?” suggested Heughan. “One quick cut with your poisoned knife,” he stuck his tongue out and mimed slicing through it. Melisande blushed and her eyes flicked to his leg. She frowned angrily at him, “It’s bleeding. What have you done to it now?”
“Kind of you to be so concerned about a ragamuffin ruffian, my lady,” said Heughan sarcastically, “but I am sure I’ll be just fine. Besides, I have no desire to be discussed in a common tavern,” he added as he swept past her.
Lady Melisande, aye? Interesting, Heughan cogitated as he hopped up onto Aluino and turned the horse around for a surreptitious look at the door. He half expected to see her run out after him imploringly, her lips parted, bosom heaving and her eyes beseeching him. Leastways, that’s what always happens in the ballads, he told himself, vaguely disappointed. She had a very nice bosom, he’d noticed.
Melisande thoughtfully ran one crooked finger down the hawk’s sleek feathers. Her voice from the shadows of the inn crooned, “You’ll find me. You’ll know where to look,” as he spurred Aluino into a canter away home.
The ride across country was hot and hard. Heughan heeded Melisande’s advice and rode a circuitous route to avoid unnecessary confrontation. It added many miles to his journey, and the day was drawing to a close as he slipped into the city to the melodious chiming of evensong.
He saw his horse settled before he thought about himself. Standing in Grape Lane between Sally’s and Rodrigues’s houses, Heughan deliberated where to go. He needed a welcome, wanted comfortable com
pany where he could be at ease with himself. Bright lights flared, raucous laughter, the smell of too much ale being drunk by too many men swirled through the shadows beyond the Lanes. His leg was hurting again. Bloody woman, he thought. Defiantly, he limped off through Rosemary Lane towards the ‘King’s Head’, seeking solace and a good supper.
The tavern was serving nettle soup. Heughan gagged at the thought of it and handed the wooden bowl of pottage back to the tavern wench. He brooded over a cup of ale instead, avoiding the men around him, who were shovelling great spoonfuls into their mouths, tossing in hunks of bread after, all the while chewing and talking and supping. Dribbling green juice leaked from the sides of their mouths, running over their chins. A memory of Ireland surfaced and with it the sourness. He fought to keep both down.
There were things from his life he sought to suppress, monsters that lurked at the edges like all dark things. Sometimes, too often of late, he couldn’t hold them back. They crept through the caverns of his mind into the realms of men, where they had no right to be. Rebellion was always cruel. He shook his head, trying to settle the thought that he was going mad with hunger.
The image was still there; the small stone bridge at the crossroads near the hills of Louth, the ditch below full of emaciated corpses. Every starved mouth stained green. Clawed hands as brittle as twigs even in death clutched desperately at the nettles and the docks which grew along the bank. That was slow punishment by the English.
The mutilated women with their noses sliced off, forced to watch their own children killed before being raped and whipped naked through the streets. The children’s corpses hacked to pieces and left to feed the scavenging dogs. That was the swift revenge of the Irish.
He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes to rid himself of the memory. He swigged the ale. It tasted vile and he retched.
A voice at his back said, “They’d not sup so cheerfully if they realised what’s in store later. Nettle soup? Only good for priests and virgins. Who wants either?” Jack beamed. He sat down on the wrong side of the bench, next to Heughan, scanning the tavern with sharp, bright eyes. “Jaysus, Heughan, you look white as a bean-sídhe. Where’s La’l Un?”