by Alex Dylan
They scanned the Firth behind them for sign of Seamus and his horse: nothing.
Aluino shifted and Heughan caught sight of a horse about a mile downstream, stood up to its flanks, not moving. The horse was either frozen with fear or waiting for Seamus. He was going to have a long wait. Heughan wanted to find the boy, but he knew the underwater currents in the Firth might keep a body down there for days. It would be a while before it washed up.
The sun was up now, it felt warm on their backs. They stood taking in the energy until they had stopped breathing so hard before setting off along the bank to pick up the spare horse. Heughan looked back at the channel. He wanted to scream. Instead, he cursed the place quietly and wondered why he’d got it wrong this morning. It was always a last resort, the most dangerous crossing to the north by far, but one the law and the Armstrongs avoided at all costs. Only the sea would catch them out here.
Heughan had been walking with his head down most of the morning, deep in thought about the young Seamus he’d left to drown the day before.
“Just a wee boy,” he kept repeating to himself.
He had spent an uncomfortable night bedded down in a byre outside Lochmaben, a day’s ride north of the Solway. All night he had stared at the torn skies of a storm above the marshlands. He could see Seamus’s hands clutching at the sky as he reached through the rushing clouds for the light of the stars that illuminated his nightmare.
Heughan’s father had taken him across the Solway his first time. It was just after his thirteenth year. His father had warned him to tread carefully; “If the mud doesn’t get you, the tide will,” he had said. As they crossed his father had kept shouting at him, “Only a man can cross the Solway,” again and again. Heughan had called out for help but his father never looked around. He left the young Heughan behind to fend for himself in the swell and foam of the terrifying flood. When they reached the other side, his father had still said nothing to him.
Am I a man to let a boy drown? he asked himself.
‘Only a man can cross the Solway.’
He pulled his jack tight and wrapped his cloak around his head against the wind. The horses walked behind him on the rein. He looked up for the first time at the sour sky above him; the rain was set in and would be with him the whole way.
He was heading for the Devil’s Beeftub, a place of legend. A place that, as a boy, the very mention of had made him shiver. His father would threaten to abandon him there if ever he made trouble as a child. The Beeftub was a naturally-formed, deep, secluded hollow surrounded by fells and a perfect place for the reivers to hide their stolen cattle before dividing them up for sale, driving them off to different markets to avoid detection. It was marshalled by the Johnstones, the family of reivers known to all as the ‘Devils’. Heughan knew it well; he’d been more than a few times but he hated the place. He never slept the night in it. It was as haunted as Hermitage Castle and that was the most haunted place in the Borders.
The Spaniard would have brought other cattle in from the southeast with the rest of the men. Heughan pondered on the welcome at the Beeftub, who else might be there, how many cattle had made it, would there be hot food, the arguments about the next raid, what his split of the sale would be? He started to notice the markings on the path. He didn’t need to look up; he knew where he was although it wasn’t his land. It wasn’t anyone’s in his mind. It was only the Wardens and the Church, in their corrupt and devious ways, that laid claim to this land, any land in fact. They liked to give it a name, to declare a right to it, so they could administer it for their own gain and exploit the local families but this land was fluid land; it fell to the victor of the day, to whoever had the balls to stand on it and defend it. Sure, this side of the Solway was the Johnstones’ patch, and if anyone was going to get the drop on him now, it would be a Johnstone, but Heughan also knew that Rodrigues was dealing with the Devils. They had an uneasy agreement. All reiver agreements were uneasy.
He could see tracks he didn’t like in front of him; at least six men and horses. Who was it? If it wasn’t the Johnstones, it’s probably the Armstrongs, he deduced. As the largest reiving family of all, they were everywhere and had their fingers in everything.
Sim’s meddling bastards, Heughan decided. They can fight though, he warned himself.
He looked at his horse with intent that told the animal it was time to carry his master. The horse could feel Heughan’s tension and he stiffened. They pushed on smartly. Gradually, the land rose more steeply and the wind whipped the tops, cowing the grass. The treeless landscape was empty and always haunted, even in sunshine. They passed the ‘gate’, a featureless point on the route but a place everyone knew was within the realm of the Beeftub.
There should have been someone there as lookout; Heughan could see the remains of a small fire recently extinguished. He looked ahead, sniffing the air. The horses shifted impatiently. They could no doubt hear what was happening ahead. Heughan hobbled the spare horse and picked up the pace with Aluino alone, more worried now. The land carried them upwards. He paused before the brow and dismounted. He held the reins in the tips of his left hand and removed his sword from his belt. He pulled hard to the left. Aluino knew the signal and dropped to roll onto his side, flattening himself into the cover of the scrub grass and wind bushes. Heughan let go of the reins, told the horse to stay down and dropped to his belly. He crawled the final yards to the crest and peered over the edge into the tub.
The crowns of the four fells that crowded together to form the Devil’s Beeftub looked empty, no sentries as far as he could see. The endless wind off the Irish Sea cropped the grass like a scissor and kept it short. There was no shelter. It was never a good place to hang around. Heughan surveyed the landscape as it curved gently but purposefully down into the huge bowl of grassed land. He could see what he had feared; there was a hand-to-hand battle going on below him.
The six he had followed had hurled themselves down the scree slope and fallen on his men. Judging from the numbers, they must have linked up with others who had perhaps tracked his lads herding the cattle all the way from Caldbeck. The usurpers must be Armstrongs, unless the Devils had double-crossed them.
“Bastard Armstrongs,” he cursed. Sim and his boys had made it a point of disrupting any trade but their own, and his men were now in danger of losing their hoard of prize beef.
Solid cattle stood munching on grass at Heughan’s end of the tub, oblivious to the melee. Heughan slipped silently down the slope in the grass and dipped into the herd. Once in amongst them, he urged them onwards by beating the beasts across their backs with the flat of his sword and panicking them into running. Hundreds of them shuddered through the tub, now aimed directly at the fight. Startled, the combatants looked up; some of them leapt up the slopes, some lay down in the grass staring at the oncoming weight of beef. The cattle snorted and rumbled on through the fight, scattering the Armstrongs, who fled to their horses.
Heughan was still amongst the cattle, probably the most dangerous place to be. He threw himself to the ground out of the path the animals were driving. He hid his head in the reedy grass. He noticed it was bleached at the base and thin like green whips at the tips. He clenched the soil in his fingers; he could smell his whole life. He checked his sword. Blood was coming. He took the crossbow slung around his neck and without looking, slid the bolt into place. He ground his pelvis deeper into the hollow of soft ground and laid his shoulder into the stock. He picked out his target, one of the raiders sitting on his horse, directing the operation. He’d only get one shot.
Heughan felt the breeze stroke his face and he knew he would have to aim off. The view became fixed before him. Nothing moved; there was no sound, the air was heavy and slow, framed as if at a funeral. He squeezed the trigger. The muscles in his shoulder flexed. He felt the thrill run down his arm and into the whisper of death unleashed as the bolt shivered through the northern wind to strike the heavy-set reiver in his ribs just below his shoulder. He toppled from his horse. Heughan was up a
nd running, sword in hand. He needed to drop on his prey while he was still down in the grass and immobilised. His eyes were narrow and set, his talons wrapped tight around the pommel. He pounced on his victim’s neck and pierced him through the throat. That was the end of Archie Howloose. He wiped Archie’s blood onto the grass, left it with him.
He stood up to assess his position and figure out who was where. He could see the canvas tents, some flattened, pots and pans spread across the ground. He whistled their signal and got a response immediately. He could see a hand waving off to his right; someone was hiding behind a dead man. He scampered over half-crouched to La’l Willie, who was clenching his teeth against the pain of a gored hole in his arm. Heughan bent down by him.
“Armstrongs?” he asked. Willie nodded agreement. “Where’s Roddy?”
“Should be behind me,” said La’l Willie.
Heughan looked up and could see two more bodies face down on the moss. He ran over, upright now as he did not feel in immediate danger. He knew which one was Rodrigues, so the other he ran through with his sword, just in case. Rodrigues’s hairline was thick with matted blood as Heughan turned his friend over, leant his head to the man’s lips and felt a faint whisper. Instinct had told him as much. He would have felt his death from miles away. He shouted for water and a flask was thrust into his hand. Heughan removed the burgonet helmet and gently offered some to Rodrigues’s lips, but he didn’t respond and it ran away through the ravine of his scar. Heughan poured some more into the palm of his hand. He massaged it across Rodrigues’s cheek, coaxing him to consciousness. He felt the Spaniard grip his forearm.
“Mmm…ele,” stumbled Rodrigues, “am I hurt bad?”
“What did he say?” Heughan asked Willie and looked back at Rodrigues suspiciously.
“I thought you were Eleanor,” said Rodrigues slowly and quietly through gritted teeth. “My head hurts.”
Heughan smiled but let his head drop onto the springy turf. “Hurts now?” he asked. “Yer all right, you bastard, you’ll live,” said Heughan, looking around and taking stock of his men.
“Hamish, where are you?” Heughan shouted to the fells, where the question echoed round four times into fading.
“Is that him, heading up onto Annanhead?” said La’l Willie, pointing at a distant blur. “Good lad if it is. That’s where I was gonna send him anyway. What about Robbie?”
“He’s probably deid,” said Willie. “He was up on Peat Knowe and I think that’s where the bloody Armstrongs came frae,” said Willie, wincing from the pain in his arm.
“What about the Devils?” asked Heughan.
“Nae one o’ the bastards in sight,” spat Willie.
“I thought that’s who Roddy had done a deal with for the Caldbeck cattle?”
“Aye, that’s what he said but they weren’t here when we arrived, and we’ve been waiting hours,” replied Willie.
“Sim will have bought them off, I bet,” said Heughan, casting his eyes about the scene. “So what’s the story, La’l Un?”
“Weel, I’m nae feeling tae gud, now that ye ask,” said Willie sarcastically.
“Willie, yer wife gives you more than that after a night on the drink,” Heughan rebuked but knelt down to tie a rag around his arm to stop the bloodflow.
“Roddy and me got dropped on. Jimmy’s done for; he was out a’ the gate and came hurtling back wi’ two arrows in him. He’s on the far slope, he never reached us.”
“How many of them?” asked Heughan.
“Ach, I’m nae sure. A few dozen, mebbe,” said Willie.
“I counted six coming in from the Solway, so the others must have been waiting for you. Someone’s got a loose tongue and if I find out, I’ll cut it from their mouth myself.”
“What were you doin’ coming across the Firth, you nutter?”
“Aye; I lost Seamus,” said Heughan looking into the wind. The coming dark was floating like a cloak over the ’tub, soon to gather them in its folds.
“Aw fuck! He was jist a wee loon. Whae d’ye risk the tides?”
“I was in a hurry to catch you, and it was just as well, by the looks of you.”
“Aye, but the Solway, in March?”
Heughan looked at the ground. “I’ll tell his ma’,” he murmured.
Rodrigues had now come round and was shouting to be brought an Armstrong alive, so he could cut off the man’s hands himself.
“Pipe down, old man,” said Heughan. “They’ve all gone; you killed one of them at least.”
“The bastards took my gold. Find it or get after them.”
Heughan turned over the dead man he had found next to Rodrigues and pulled out a pouch of gold from the man’s jack. A few big coins spilled onto the ground. Heughan picked them up, frowning at the embossed crosses marking them. “Here, keep your gold and put your sword back in its scabbard,” said Heughan.
“No. I’m going to ride them down and kill every one of them; now and through the night and then I’m going to kill all the Devil Johnstones in their beds. They’ll never use the Beeftub again. Double crossing bastards…” roared Rodrigues, struggling against the ground, trying to rise up.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’ve a gash in your head that needs stitching.”
“Let me get to Melisande then.”
“You’ll no’ be able to balance on yer horse, you fool,” Heughan dismissed.
“I can ride yer arse into the ground, lad; bloodied, pissed, blind or any other way you care to mention,” Rodrigues spat out with a mouthful of blood.
“We’ll get even, you mad old dog, but once we’ve cleaned up the lads and sold this herd,” reasoned Heughan.
Rodrigues’s good eye rolled crazily shut, he fell back onto the turf and began to snore. “Stitch him up, Fletch, while he’s out cold,” said Heughan, motioning to another of his men.
The Armstrongs had gone but Heughan worried they’d be waiting not far off. He didn’t fancy chasing them into the night. A couple of his boys were up on the edges as lookout. He’d have to clean up Rodrigues and Willie. The cattle were dispersed throughout the tub. Tomorrow they would divide them up and drive them to market. He wasn’t going to let the Johnstones, let alone the Armstrongs, have them at any price. He’d deal with them later.
“Mud, blood and money,” he repeated to himself, “mud, blood and money.”
He’d have to sleep the night in the ’tub: His penance for Seamus’s death. He shook off the creeping shivers. Somewhere towards Annanhead, a solitary hawk shrieked above the menace of the lonely slopes. Heughan could barely make it out against the barren heights.
He returned to the upset campsite and righted a pot or two. The campfire had been scattered in the melee but the ashes blowing in the wind felt warm to his touch. He crouched down carefully and rebuilt the protective wall of small stones, blowing gently on the embers, breathing life back into the hearth. They glowed encouragingly red. Heughan grabbed a stick from the ground and snapped it quickly. He banked the twigs around and blew again. This time the flame erupted and crackled at the wood. It didn’t take him long to stoke the blaze and he looked around for the pots he had discarded.
A light away in the distance to his left caught his eye. Heughan turned cautiously. He had seen an answering beacon on the adjacent fell, and another and another, flicking into life, a rippling chain dancing over the hills and away into the dark border hinterlands, lighting a path to guide a queen’s departing soul.
Heughan looked at the skies. Except for the wheeling dark cross of the hunting hawk, the brooding heavens above the Debatable Lands were bare, stripped by the awakening north.
Chapter 9: The Beginning of the End
Richmond Palace, the Day Before Lady Day, 1603
When the end finally came, James Stewart’s loyal supporters in London moved swiftly to ensure his succession. Dressed from head to toe in sombre black bombazine, the queen’s carlines flocked into the corners, hopping from one foot to the other and watching shrewdly as
the elderly Elizabeth lay unconscious and fading. Avice Middlemore rustled over to the bed to perch by the bolsters, purposefully separating herself from the rest.
Ross’s beldame of a sister was very fond of Elizabeth, even having endured a whole lifetime of sterile spite as lady of the queen’s bedchamber. She held the queen’s senseless hand and dabbed with a large white handkerchief at her own soft tears, her grief punctuated by the occasional loud snuffle. However, Avice Middlemore was also Borders born and bred; hard with the granite of the mountains and ruthlessly cold.
It was no easy matter to ease the queen’s coronation ring off her gnarled fingers and was taking far longer than Avice had anticipated. Philadelphia Scrope, herself the wife of a Warden of the Marches, surreptitiously helped, smoothing the fine-textured goose grease into the skin of the queen’s hand as she gently stroked it. She met Avice’s eyes and nodded imperceptibly. As Avice gave a loud sob, Philadelphia snapped the queen’s finger, slipped the coronation ring off and tucked it into the handkerchief. Only their corsetry constrained their emotions as the ladies quit the chamber together. The guards watched the two severe women glide funereally away, shedding the occasional feather plume as they sculled down the long galleries. Once absorbed into the shadows, Avice gathered up her skirts and bustled through the looming corridor in a flurry of rapid moulting to find Lord Ravensdale, who was waiting for her. Philadelphia knotted the ring into the handkerchief and dropped it out of a window into the secure hands of her brother, Sir Robert Carey, who was waiting discretely below.
Carey retained a Borderer’s sense of weather-change from his time served as Warden of the Marches. He had sensed which way this particular wind was going to blow at the turn of the year, after his chat with Cecil. Age had not cowed him but the queen’s chronic stinginess and his own fondness for fine living made him a likely candidate for well-paid intrigue. Astutely, the Duke of Rohan had picked him out for a risky mission that bordered on treason. Certain of his man, he sent his old ally, the Irish Lord Ravensdale to intercept Carey.