by Andrew Greig
She slid from her cob, passed the reins to Alysoun, who stared sullenly back at her. Helen reached within her cloak, I heard a chink, then she passed coin.
“Dinna leave my sight,” Alysoun said. “It’s mair than—”
We walked off some paces. I secured Handsome Jenny and waited.
Helen made a couple of false starts, tears working at the corners of her reddened eyes. “My mither took me aside this morn. She asked . . .” Helen looked down, blood in her cheeks at last. “She asked if I was still . . . entire.”
I had tried not to wonder myself. Still, I was affrontit for her.
“And you answered?”
“That I had never felt anything other than entire, until that moment.”
A reply at once cutting and evasive.
“I ken how these things are,” her mother had continued. “I myself—”
“Mither, please!”
Her mother flushed, but persisted. “This must be known before a marriage can be committed to. If you are no longer entire, daughter, there are ways . . .”
“That will not be necessary,” Helen said, and turned away, ready to leave and spare them the pain of looking more at each other.
But the interview had not been over. Her mother said there had been word of trysts with Adam Fleming. This must stop. She was to meet with none but Bell. No more sneaking off to tryst in bush or byre. She was not to receive visitors alone, nor leave Bonshaw unaccompanied, even to see her Springkell cousins.
“It is your father’s will.”
Helen’s voice faltered. Her hand clenched on my arm as though she would fall if she let go.
“And I gave her back, Oh aye—whoever he is!” She stared at me, wild-eyed. “I mean, anyone can see . . . I have long wondered—”
The blow had been hard and swift. Helen had crouched on the floor, drawing hand across mouth, looked down wonderingly at blood.
“Your faither is a better man than you can ever imagine,” her mother said.
Helen rubbed her lips, got to her feet.
“I have imagined only because you have never told me,” she said quietly.
The moment was long, then her mother stretched out a shaking hand. Helen sat beside her, licking away blood, felt her mother’s shoulder tremble against hers. She had seen the drawer containing christening gowns of the brother and two sisters who came before her, who lived but days or weeks.
“You mind how Bonshaw was overrun by the Hameless Grahams whilst your father was awa?”
Of course she remembered—not the fact, but the story, mentioned, glimpsed, quickly bundled away. Her father in his cups had joked it cost him five years’ rents to get his own wife back.
“They held me for three weeks afore he could raise the money.” Her mother’s voice whispered like moths clasped in the palm. “Much may happen in three weeks.”
Out in the yard, nothing moved, but the very light of day changed.
“Who is he?”
“Deid afore you were born. Your faither made siccar of that.”
The retiring room grew dim as they sat. “You are our best hope,” her mother said at last. She stood up, rearranged her coif, checked herself in the mirror. “Please do not speak of this to . . . your father. He has taken and loved you as his own.”
As Helen watched her mother leave the room, all she could taste was blood, her own blood, but it was not the blood she had thought it to be. It seemed everything she had been and felt up to this point was but childish.
The sun had grown bleary as I held Helen cooried to my chest. Standing by the horses, Alysoun glared anxiously, though surely she could see this was no lovers’ embrace.
Helen pushed herself away from me. Her chin came up.
“I must get back to Bonshaw,” she said. “Rob Bell is calling by, and I am to be there. Please do not tell Adam.”
“That you’re seeing Bell, or that—?”
“No! Do not tell him that.”
“What will you do?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “I no longer know who my family is.”
She kissed my cheek, hurried back to Alysoun. Once back on the saddle, she looked thoughtful rather than broken and lost. She blew a vague kiss, then they were gone.
I stood awhile by Handsome Jenny, watching them pass into the trees. To not know one’s family was surely a terrible thing. Whatever her mischief and high spirits, being an Irvine had mattered a deal to my cousin.
I saw again that brief, puzzling exchange between my uncle and aunt, the haunted look that passed just before he rode off on the hot-trod. “Nane left behind?” “Bolt and bar yersel in the tower and dinna leave.” Aunt Ann had been right on one count—Will Irvine was a better and more considerable man than most. I wondered how long it would take Helen to come to the same conclusion, and what difference that might make.
Blackett House
Even in the Borderlands at their most unruly, most days were just birds whittering in trees and hedge, fields wet with rain, sky shifting above the long riggs, a dour day brightening. The horsemen riding up the heuch for the most part passed with a nod, the axe rose and fell to make a winter’s burning. The crossbow thrummed, the squeal was but a hare dying for the pot.
Yet the balefire wood remained stacked under cover on the battlement. Lance, jack, sword and crossbow were handy in the nook by the door. And when callers came she would darken her lashes, brush out her hair, moisten her lips before the hand-mirror, then come down the stair to meet whatever the world brought.
I see her clearly, as in life, her pale hand gripping then releasing the newel post as she crosses the hall. That afternoon’s visitor is Robert Bell, come to negotiate with her “father.” Bell’s long-barrelled pistolet swings from its lanyard as his lips burn on her hand. She watches the two men go into the privy room and close the door. This is not my family.
Shaking at the knees, she climbs the peel-tower stair. From up here she can see the English hills, the Solway’s sheen. Below, the doos croon and scold. The favoured whites stir restlessly in their special cage, yearning to fly hame. Just so did Teresa of Avila write of the soul. My father took and loves me as his ain.
I see her well, down to her green-embroidered kirtle, her distracted, fervent movements in those last days. But I do not see her thoughts and I do not see her inmost heart as she stands on the battlement, while out on the estuary the salt grass reishles to a shift in tide.
The days before the end-feud feast rang hard and true, the cold like a blow struck on the anvil, bare trees stock-stiff against the bluest sky. Good weather for travelling and gathering; fine nights for folk to stay warm indoors to eat and raise glasses in friendship and accord. Fine nights too for reiving, rape and murder.
At dinner Dand declared he and his wife and son would go by hired coach to Blackett House, to show they were gentry-folk of substance. The going would be good, if bumpy, and the last mile or so level ground along the newly planted avenue.
“We will ride, Dand,” Janet said firmly. “For we are riding folk. That is how my forefaithers and yours made themselves, and that is how we will keep what we have.”
“The Irvines have bought a coach,” Dand objected. “It is aa’ painted wi’ their arms, and decorated wi’ . . . bonnie stuff.”
I had seen it on last my visit, nestled in its own wee house. It was fresh-painted with a landscape, part Annandale and part Arcadia, where strangely proportioned dogs herded elephantine sheep, watched by a shepherd in a toga, crook in one hand, lyre in the other. Hideous. Helen had rolled her eyes.
“It needs no coach to make Elliots and Flemings equal to the Irvines.” Janet put her hand on his arm to soften her words.
“Aw, but Janet.”
Her hand slipped down to his wrist. Adam had looked away, but I watched with fascination her fingers gently encircle his big broken thumb.
There was no coach waiting in the courtyard on Saturday.
It had been agreed to limit the number of followers o
n both sides. For simplicity and to avoid alarm, it was said, but I thought economy probably came into it. Earl Angus had insisted—offered, he said, but it was not that—he personally pay for the whole affair. The heidsmen and their nearest kin would dine at Blackett, while the followers were to have all they wanted at the Scabby Duck by Ecclefechan.
Some twenty of the Fleming men gathered in the frozen courtyard. A few I recognized from the hot-trod. I confess their nods of acknowledgement pleased me. Apparently I had faked being a reiver well enough.
We were all sprushed to the gills as my mother—mither, I so nearly wrote with this cultured hand that only once in a while reverts when the heart prompts—used to say. The day before we had all washed our hair, had Marie trim away the fluff, then combed it out to be gathered and knotted at the back. Best britches, clean bunnet, clart scraped from my boots. Adam emerged in a gold-trimmed, cross-looped, green doublet with stiff high collar. He had the grace to blush when I grinned. Philby dogged his heels, and even he sported a broad new leather collar.
We were all quite the thing. As we milled around in the freezing sun, it felt like going to a wedding, as in a way we were. I understood this day would link the Flemings and Irvines in common fealty. No wonder Adam looked bright, for it would do his suit no harm. He had talked of raising it with his mother once this day was done. “No harm trying. If that fails, we can aye run awa!” I wasn’t at all sure he was joking.
Jed gripped me by the arm. As ever he wore his leather jerkin, but had shined it up, boots likewise. Clean-shaved, tangled hair tidied away under a raised felt hat.
“My, you scrub up weel,” I said.
“Wheest, cheeky-breeks.” He leaned into me and spoke low. “You’re armed?”
Only then did I register the sword on his hip, dagger on the other. None of the followers bore arms, nor the heidsmen—apart from a pouched dirk, which apparently didn’t count. That was the agreement. Such meetings of long-at-feud families had gone wrong before, especially with drink taken.
“No. But you?”
“On occasions like this, one from each party bears sword. It’s . . . ceremonial.” He leaned closer, his breath like old leather as he spoke urgently in my lug. “Get it now.”
I excused myself and hurried to my room. I dragged long stiletto and sheath out from under the pallet, made all good under my clothes, and re-emerged into the dazzling cold with heart a-thumping.
We all mounted. Jed looked across at me, gave a brief, dark nod. Now only one was awaited.
Janet Elliot Fleming passed out her front door in a long crimson gown cut low and lace-trimmed. Her tallow hair was piled up and pinned in the old manner. Her cloak was sky-blue velvet, half-length. She wore dark gloves embroidered, and riding boots with silver spurs.
Head held high, she crossed the yard to her bay roan, put one foot on the near stirrup and swung herself up onto the saddle easy as a kite plucks a dove from the sky. She sat across the saddle like a common woman, but her assurance would make Ann Irvine in her coach look like a sparrow riding in a turnip lantern.
I saw many unco sights in the Borders that year, and men of dash and daring, but she was earth and fire, the Elliot spirit incarnate. Across near-on fifty years, in that blue cloak, boots and glinting spurs, in my mind she rides still, magnificent.
She looked to her husband as though he were in charge, but it was her nod set us on our way, our best dogs following ahint, Philby aye by his master’s mare.
Blackett House was a size up from Irvine Hall. New walls with castellation and corbels pushed out beyond a central keep, yet they lacked conviction, as though their makers knew stone piled on stone could not long resist the new artillery. Dark and graceless, it was neither castle nor comfortable family home, and the big windows in place of slits were an admission the days of such strongholds were over.
Yet we were impressed, of course. Money and power are always impressive. As always I tried to keep steady by muttering sarcasms to Jed as he rode impassively beside me, his eyes set on Adam’s back as we went through the gates, bound and crossed with brass, into the thronging courtyard.
Under the eyes of their heidsmen, the Irvine and Fleming followers behaved themselves. Hands were grasped, shoulders battered in mutual admiration. Jed told me that the feud had for a generation been more one of ritual cursing and stylish spitting than real feeling. On several occasions both families had ridden together—the freeing of Shuggie Riley from Saughton, the Redeswire reiving. Our hot-trod, and the arrival of Dand as the new heidsman, had finally made the feud redundant as the old peel tower behind Blackett House.
Past the stushie of men, I saw Earl Angus emerge from the front doorway. He wore his black jerkin with gold-thread trim, scarlet gloves, and his high-heeled boots and cockaigne hat with plume were aimed to make that rather spindly man appear somewhat grand. It may have been the boots, but he seemed not entirely steady.
“Yon man is never a Protestant,” Jed murmured.
Stepping out by him came my Aunt Ann, looking important in blue blousy stuff, topped with a hat like a startled partridge. Just behind, my Uncle Will bent and swayed in gratified winds, his long pale face turning this way and that.
We unhorsed. By the stables I saw Elenora carrying bottles of wine from a cart into the kitchens. She saw me, nodded and went inside. Her brief smile seemed strained.
As Janet, Dand and Adam made through the crowd towards the Irvines, Jed and I were in tight behind. We were coming up the steps, smiling, hands outstretched, when there was a clatter and commotion ahint us. At the head of a dozen men, Robert Bell and John Rusby rode in through the gates, fresh from the hunt.
Our greetings paused, then were consummated, a little awkwardly on account of the distraction behind. Handshakes and curtsies (in the flamboyant French fashion from Aunt Ann, the more dignified Italian incline from Janet). Gallant kisses for the ladies and between them. Aunt Ann’s patronizing pucker glanced off Janet Elliot’s imperious cheek. Adam inclined his bare head to the Warden, then greeted more warmly the Irvines he believed might yet become his in-laws.
Bell came bounding up the steps, Rusby behind with hand resting on the hilt of his sword where it hung by his side. He must be the appointed armed man. He and Jed stared each other out till Jed shrugged and turned away as if towards something more interesting.
“Bonjour to all! Welcome to our house!” Bell seemed very pleased with himself. I caught a distinct whiff of scented oil in his hair as he brushed by me to greet the Earl of Angus with a near-casual shake of the hand.
I admit Bell was a fine, vigorous figure as he gave elaborate attention to a simpering Ann Irvine. As he shook with Will, his left hand firmly clasped his intended father-in-law’s forearm. To some it may have seemed sincerity, to me it looked like ownership.
Then he turned to Dand and Janet. “Welcome, both!”
I saw Janet’s cheek twitch. “Welcome to you, Master Bell,” she said, and held out her gloved hand. He had no option but to incline his head and kiss her glove.
Bell to Dand was straightforward, the strong handshake, the forearm clutch. Then the black cockerel, long curly locks perfuming the noon air, turned to Adam.
“Fleming.”
“Bell.”
The handshake was brief, firm and equal. Bell turned away with a hint of a smirk just as Helen emerged from the inner hallway.
She paused a moment in the winter sunlight, green cloak over one arm. In an unadorned pure yellow linen kirtle, bare-headed with her fair hair wound up above her long neck, she seemed a hesitant flame. I swear the rough men in the courtyard fell silent, looking her way as though at some eternally desirable, eternally unapproachable end.
She was equidistant between Adam and Bell. She would have to greet one first. Then she saw me off to the side, and with a smile that lit the day stepped over to hug her cousin. No one could object to that.
Her breath was warm in my ear as she whispered, “Find me later.”
When she release
d me, she was now nearest Adam. She took one step towards him, he took two to her. I thought one would have to be blind not to see the gladness that ran between them. He smiled, took her bare hand, kissed it tenderly. They said brief things I could not hear, their heads close.
Robert Bell stood behind, not a happy heidsman.
As she came to him, she held out her hand. Bell had no choice but to take it. Then his other arm dipped round her waist in an unmistakably possessive gesture. She smiled modestly, then turned to greet Janet and Dand, and that turn freed her naturally from Bell’s hand.
I thought I saw a pucker by the corner of Janet Elliot’s lips as the heid ones turned to go within. Will Irvine stretched out his arm to the woman who was and was not his daughter, and looked on her proudly as she came to him. Helen glanced briefly up into his eyes, then smiled and took his arm. The rest of us began to follow in due order.
John Rusby thumped into my shoulder. I looked close at the man I believed had poisoned Adam, and tried to have me killed in Langholm. He was tall, heavyset, pockmarked. His nose had been laid to the left. His eyes—
“Who you looking at, cunt?”
I had played this scene a hundred times in the city closes.
“A fellow guest, mon ami,” I said innocently. “A fellow diner at the banquet of life.” (Horace, I think.) Rusby’s eyes were brown, wide and entirely without light. Whatever had once lived within had long left.
“I’ll see your arse stuffed, wassock.”
I leaned closer to him. “I shall count the hours.”
I left him struggling to untangle that, and made to enter the main hall on only slightly shaky legs. I would say that man’s eyes were empty, but it was more that whatever they looked on for him was void.
“Nae dugs,” Rusby snarled. His kick caught the sniffing Philby in the ribs. His shriek brought Adam’s head round, but his dog had already slunk away. In the courtyard the lesser family, followers and retainers began to set off for the Scabby Duck and the entertainments there, and those of us who were neither high nor low followed the heidsmen into the place of peace.