Burning the Water

by Robert Low

  ‘Aye, weel,’ Batty said. ‘I am certain the drab was too foxed to know where she was an’ doubly certain I did not care. Drink had been taken by then.’

  The stare intensified and then Sir Nicholas removed the eyeglasses.

  ‘You do not much care for anything, legal or otherwise, I have heard. A thief-taker for money, I have heard, and more inclined to the dead than the alive in a posted Bill.’

  ‘You have heard wrongwise,’ Batty answered shortly, ‘for there is no money in dead. Wardens who pay for those who foul served Bills like them alive, so they can hang them, all perjink and legal.’

  The Sheriff glowered a moment.

  ‘Lewdness and drunkenness – guilty. Fine and another ten-day.’

  It was lenient – pillory in the stocks had been a possibility, but Sir Nicholas was no fool and knew the worth of Batty and the folk in ‘high places’. Batty heard Red Rowan growl under his breath; the Sheriff spilled wax on a document, stuck his seal ring in and handed it off to a fat clerk, then waved Batty and Red Rowan away with a call of ‘next’.

  ‘If you believe for a minute that you will be sitting about my jail being served hand and foot and not paying a farthing for it,’ Red Rowan muttered, taking Batty by the arm. He had more to say but stopped and stared at the length of blade in his face.

  Beyond, men spilled into the room, armed and swift; a guard dropped his halberd with a clatter and put his hands in the air, while another gave a brief threatening flourish and was pistol-whipped to the ground by the long barrel of a caliver. A clerk screamed like a woman.

  ‘Stay. Be doucelike.’

  The voice was sharp and clear as a barking dog, the owner a barrel-shaped man in a cloak designed to hide his padded jack and his brace of big bollock daggers. He had a gimlet look to him and the half-dozen or so with him reeked of greased smoke and wickedness. The Sheriff glared at him.

  ‘This is the Tolbooth. I am Sir Nicholas Strellie – are you mad?’

  ‘I ken fine who you are and have heard you enough.’

  The voice slashed through the room and Batty backed quietly to one side of Red Rowan, away from the crowd; he felt something dig him in the ribs and turned into the ragged-beard grin of a grime-faced man with a fistful of sword. He had a burgonet, a stained and slashed jack leaking wisps of wool padding from the old cuts and a backsword – the very image of every reiver Batty had ever seen. Batty waved in surrender and the man, seeing a fat one-armed old man, relaxed and lowered the blade.

  ‘I am John Wallis of Twa Corbies,’ said the barrel-shaped man and the Sheriff polished his eyeglasses furiously on the lace of one cuff; he clearly knew the name. Men bustled behind all their backs, tearing open kists and drawers.

  Batty heard men crashing about below and thought about the Tolbooth prison and the man called Evil-Willit Tam Wallis. All broken nose and vengeance by now, he thought. Reeking of leek and about to be loosed…

  ‘You have presided ower petitions regarding the ownership of my lands,’ Wallis went on. ‘The ones where Dacre of Lanercost claims his rights.’

  ‘You have no deeds or registry,’ the Sheriff said, replacing his eyeglasses on his nose. ‘If you feel aggrieved, apply for redress…’

  ‘We have,’ Wallis interrupted. ‘We have told you of deeds and registry, going back to the Flood and supposedly lodged safely in Edinburgh.’

  ‘It appears there was a conflagration…’ Sir Nicholas attempted and Wallis waved him silent; since the hand doing it was full of a long-muzzled dagg, the Sheriff did so promptly. Batty watched the grim of Wallis’ face, the gaunt determination of it. It was, he realised, a face matched well with the body it was attached to, for the one was as grim as a wet gallows and the other was a solid wall for it to perch on.

  ‘Aye,’ Wallis agreed. ‘There was a fire. Deeds and registry from the time afore the coming of Christ went up in smoke. But no’ the Bastard Dacre’s claimed writs. They survived, to be brought here for use in the upcoming case.’

  Someone thrust paper at him and Wallis took it; sparks flew and were breathed into flame; Red Rowan stirred and Batty laid a quieting hand on his elbow, so that he glanced, took the hint and subsided.

  Wallis put the flame to the papers, which crackled and smoked; wax seals melted and he dropped them to the polished wood floor. The Sheriff, alarmed, made to stamp them out and was backhanded casually to the ground, so that Red Rowan growled and started to spring forward, only to be hauled up short by Batty’s iron grip.

  ‘Help up His Lordship,’ he declared blandly and Red Rowan found himself obeying. Wallis, unsmiling, looked at them with his apple-pip eyes and added more papers to the flames.

  ‘There was a conflagration,’ he declared. ‘My Lord Thomas Dacre, the Bastard of Lanercost, has lost his claimed deeds and writs to Wallis lands, which did not survive.’

  His men laughed like hunting dogs and the Sergeant bristled his own hackles.

  ‘You will never get beyond the walls,’ Red Rowan declared savagely, lifting the dazed Sheriff to his unsteady feet; there was blood on his mouth and beard and he blinked once or twice.

  ‘My eyeglasses…’

  They were smashed but it did not matter. Everyone, even him, could see the next part of the affair arrive like a charging bull. Evil-Willit Tam and a brace of others burst into the room, bringing Wallis’ head round.

  ‘Away lads,’ he declared as his men began to spill back out of the doors. ‘Fetch this Master Coalhouse. Take the Sheriff…’

  Later it was a matter of sour wonder to Batty why he did it, but at the time it seemed as good a way of getting clear of the Evil Willit Tam and his leek-stained wrath – he whirled on the man behind him, kicked him hard on the knee and wrenched the blade from his surprised hand.

  Then he stuck it in his teeth and jerked the Sheriff away, back towards the other door out of the court, the one that led up to the next floor. He then filled his hand with hilt again, cursing as the ragged blade-edge nicked the corner of his mouth. He kicked the hopping Wallis man who’d owned it on the other leg and watched him collapse, howling.

  ‘Take the Sergeant,’ he yelled to John Wallis, shoving Sir Nicholas behind him. ‘He is better liked and can open any gate besides.’

  The Sheriff stumbled, half-fell, then saw the chance Batty offered and scrambled up the winding steps, Batty shoving from behind as if pushing a fat beldame up a ladder. He was halfway when he heard the growl and saw the fresh-bruised face, the nose askew and still bloody. A shred of leek clung stubbornly to the nose blood on his beard.

  ‘Hand him down,’ Tam Wallis roared, ‘or bigod I will come up an’ skewer you.’

  He had one of the guard’s halberds, so it was no idle threat, Batty thought, even as he made his voice light and his manner easy.

  ‘Come ahead. There is a length of steel with your name on it here. Ugly Fat Whoreson it is called.’

  He shoved backwards, cursing the Sheriff to move his big arse; when resistance vanished, Batty went up a step or two, only to hear the Sheriff beating on the door and bellowing to be let in; those in the room above had barred it.

  The halberd whicked like an adder tongue, then Tam came around the curve of stair, stabbing it in little movements. He had the reach and strength, but not the advantage of height and he knew it, stopped and frowned. Below him, smoke spilled in acrid billows and someone yelled his name.

  ‘Your ma wants you,’ Batty said, bringing a grin springing to Tam’s face. He nodded.

  ‘Mayhap we will get a chance to share a morning meal again sometime,’ he said and backed away a little. Batty watched close and careful, so the hunch of shoulder and the tilt of head came as no surprise and he sighed, for he knew what was coming.

  Tam spun and lurched forward, thrusting up. Batty stepped sideways, put one foot on the halberd as it shrieked metal on the step, then stamped with the other; the haft snapped like a bone and Tam fell forward, off-balanced by the ploy and gripping no more than splintered stick.

&
nbsp; He fumbled and half-rolled, looked up and saw an unsmiling cliff of a face behind a solitary fistful of steel. The blade, when it sliced his neck, seemed cold as ice.

  There was a moment of gurgling and blood and the Sheriff finally forced those inside to open the door; his swearing was a gilt-strip of bad cess on useless cowards everywhere.

  Batty sat down on the top step, blowing a little and listening to Tam Wallis choke out his last, while the blood spread and spilled in thick rivulets, dripping step after step back down the stairs.

  The Sheriff re-appeared, sweating, cursing and red-faced. The sight of Tam and all the blood silenced him to stare and heavy breathing; he stepped gingerly over the sluggish waterfall of gore and went off down the stairs, trailed by the coterie of clerks and servants scoured from the room.

  Batty sat and looked at Tam Wallis, finally realised he was still gripping the gory blade and laid it down.

  ‘Silly bugger,’ he said to the dead man. ‘Now I have the full cost of the Fourpenny Ward to bear and a purse full of wind.’

  Below, he heard men stamping and roaring for the fire to be put out – well, it was sweaty and busy work but a good excuse against the more dangerous business of chasing the Wallis men through Berwick.

  Batty knew the hue and cry would be raised sooner or later, but the men would be gone by then, out of gates shut far too slowly. He wondered if Red Rowan would be unharmed – and appreciated the service he had done, however forced, for the Sheriff of Berwick.

  In the room at the Tolbooth top a meal was laid out for the Sheriff’s luncheon; the man himself could be heard downstairs, roaring for his weapons and to have the fire out.

  Left alone, Batty wandered into the room, sat in a carved, cushioned chair and helped himself to bread and meat and a fine Rhenish, wishing he had someone with him prepared to wager on how long it took to raise the hue and cry. Twenty minutes, give or take, Batty thought. He would put even money on it. You could be out the Briggate in ten.

  Twenty-three minutes later, Red Rowan was back safely released, red-faced and bellowing for men and horses, a hot trod in pursuit of the villains who had dared to raid the Guild Tolbooth of Berwick in broad daylight. Who had double-dared to take him hostage for their getaway.

  Batty ambled down to the door, chewing his way past the lolling goggle of Tam Wallis on the steps, the blistered, blackened floor, the guard moaning as he was treated for a gashed head. He chewed and swallowed idly, watching the Sheriff tripping over his lip and demanding for burning peat to be found and mounted on a lance, so that the trod would be all perjink and proper.

  Batty almost choked on his mouthful. Burning peat in Berwick? As like to find a naked virgin with a bag of gold…

  ‘I am Riding,’ Red Rowan roared out to the curious who had gathered to gawp. ‘I will do so alone save for garrison men, but if any wish to avenge this slur on the honour of the toon, they are welcome to join me.’

  He saw Batty and scowled.

  ‘Batty Coalhouse – you are the very man. Thief-taker and tracker. Get your weapons from inside and we will find you a nag.’

  Batty shrugged and waved his handful of bread and meat.

  ‘I am serving twenty days in the jail,’ he reminded Red Rowan cheerfully. ‘This Wallis is no matter of mine.’

  Red Rowan did not reply, simply reined round, scowling like a black thundercloud as he clattered the horse dangerously fast on the cobbles, trailing men behind him.

  The Sheriff watched them go, then turned to the Doorward who was now in charge of Berwick’s law and order and only just realising it.

  ‘Secure Master Coalhouse,’ the Sheriff snapped. ‘Return him to his cell. Since he has clearly enjoyed my luncheon, he will not need fed again for a day.’

  Cuthie watched Sir Nicholas stamp off, then shrugged apologies to Batty.

  ‘There is gratitude for you,’ Batty said. ‘I only sampled some meat and bread. And a glass or two.’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ Cuthie growled. ‘Well done is ill served as they say – Red Rowan may think the same, since he stood surety for you and you would not ride with him.’

  Batty had no answer to the truth of that but thought Cuthie more concerned about being left in charge than Red Rowan Riding without a Batty Coalhouse. He said so and saw the droop to Cuthie’s shoulders.

  ‘Still,’ he added gently, ‘you will not have to concern yourself long over keeping the peace in Berwick by yourself.’

  ‘Why for?’ Cuthie asked as they strolled back down the stairs, chased by trailing tendrils of char.

  ‘Och, Red Rowan will be back in less than a day. He will not catch those Wallis men. Wynds and stairwells is more his style and the hills and moors are a mystery to him. I wager he will be back afore breakfast.’

  ‘Away,’ Cuthie exclaimed. ‘He is fired for a trod is the Sergeant. He will not be back in a week.’

  ‘A shilling says he is.’

  ‘Done.’

  Cuthie closed the deal and the door, though he was uneasy at where Batty would get a shilling – and at the sound of happy singing, pungent as the acrid smell of the smoke.

  ‘There came a man, by middle day, who spied his sport and went away. And brought the king that very night, who brake my bower, and slew my knight.’

  Berwick on the Tweed

  Eight days later

  There was sun on the sea to the east, dancing on it for the joy of shining and Batty wondered if it would turn its smile inland; over his head was a pewter and rain sky.

  Fitting enough, Batty thought, for the mood in Berwick, which had not improved with the return of Sergeant Red Rowan Charlton and his muddy draggle of weary riders. If they ever had a burning peat on a lance point, it had long since got sodden-tired and fallen off. So had more than a few of the riders and all of them felt they had been out a week rather than a day and night.

  Even winning a shilling from Cuthie was little compensation for Red Rowan’s mood, for the Sergeant had put Batty to work while he served out his jail term, since he could not pay for the Fourpenny Ward; the shilling he took for ‘the contingency fund’. The Sheriff made a great show of taking details he already knew, for the report he was writing into the ‘untimely death of one Thomas Wallis’ – but he was half-hearted and half-ashamed at best, because even he knew the death had been more than timely.

  As Batty told him – a quim-hair longer in reach and Evil-Willit Tam would have stuck your own guard’s halberd atween your lordship’s hurdies.

  Batty was clearly useless with a mop and broom, so he was put to fetching and carrying and Red Rowan had been snarling for seven days over the Wallis raid. Worse than a cuckold, Batty thought.

  Each and every hour Batty would lug a wooden kit up the Tolbooth to the Sheriff’s fine solar and lug the waste pot down again; each time he did it he stepped over the top stair, still crimson-tinged for all the scrubbing. If there was time and the Sheriff not in the Tolbooth, he would ignore the scathe of the Depute, a plump Guild man scribbling away in a corner, and stop to look out the least distorted panes of leaded glass at the sea.

  The tower panes, on the other side, also provided a wavering view, this one of the long, cramped run of the wooden bridge, tumbled down to ruin and piling stumps by ice floes not long since. Which at least saved the Scots from coming to burn it, which was all-too frequent when English armies lost a battle. The first raid Scots did after such a victorious affray, Batty knew, was to come down to Berwick and fire the bridge and it was so established it was almost a tradition.

  Not this time. The bridge would have been safe – if the ice had not smashed it – for the Scots were still stunned by their victory and unwilling to double the bet with the weak forces left. They also knew that Fat Henry still had troops around Berwick and more were arriving every day.

  Not Maramaldo, all the same, for Batty scoured for word and found none; the Captain General and the ordnance he’d been taking south had vanished somewhere on the way and Batty had an idea what the lobsters sea
rched for. He would have smiled if the thought of Maramaldo’s Company of the Sable Rose, loose on the Cheviots with a brace of sakers, had not chilled him to the bowel.

  Every day Batty took what chance he could with this marvellous all-round view, another part of which was down the Nungait. Today’s riders were notables by the pennons and the arrogant way they scattered the throng, but they were not, as far as Batty could tell, anything to do with Maramaldo.

  He watched them until he was snapped at by the Depute and told to take himself off. Even then he merely gave a withering glance and watched on until he was satisfied, before hefting the kit down the steps again.

  He was spilling waste into the gutters, sluicing away the fishheads and dog shit when he saw Red Rowan come barrelling up the street, swathed in cloak and important hurry. The Sergeant spotted him and came up, his boar-eyes narrowed.

  ‘How do you know the Musgraves of Bewcastle?’

  Batty blinked at that and tried to think about answering the question while squinting to work out why it was asked. In the end, he did a rare thing and told the truth – he knew that the Musgraves of Bewcastle were at feud with the Grahams of anywhere and since he himself was a Graham, albeit a shame to the grayne and a by-blow besides, he supposed he was considered no friend.

  ‘Mind you,’ he added mildly, ‘the Musgraves are at feud also with the Armstrongs, who are at odds with the Grahams. Mayhap a Musgrave accommodation has been reached with the Grahams.’

  Red Rowan rubbed his rasp of cropped whiskers at this; the current relationships of Border graynes was confusing and ever-changing.

  ‘Of course,’ Batty added helpfully, ‘I am considered an affront to the Grahams for various reasons, so that Name holds little regard for me. Mark you, Dickon Graham of Netherby owes me a favour yet.’

  Red Rowan frowned and pondered for a minute; the rain started and Batty looked pointedly up at the sky, which stirred the Sergeant from his musing.

  ‘Aye, well – Sir John Musgrave himself, no less, has just rode in and abides patiently at the Old Brig, having taken it over entire for his wheen of riders. He is asking for one Batty Graham, also known as Coalhouse, whom he knows is held at the Sheriff’s pleasure.’