Burning the Water

by Robert Low

  He eyed Batty with a jaundiced stare.

  ‘He has paid your fines.’

  So Batty was handed back his gear and weapons and escorted to the Old Brig. Escorted, for all he was supposedly now a free man, by a scowling Red Rowan who wanted to know everything that went on.

  He and Batty stepped into the top room of the Old Brig, ducking the smoke-blackened beams of the finest room the tavern had to offer – it had a glass window in it. The light from it made everyone look as if they were underwater and, for all it was broad daylight outside, the place was dim as twilight, the folk in it half-shadows.

  There were two besides himself and Rowan, Batty saw, his eyes sweeping the room with an old skill and his one hand politely just far enough from the axe-handled dagg thrust into his belt. It was not loaded or primed, but folk who did not know that might think before challenging it – besides, the axe head was a consideration in itself.

  One of the men was perched close to the second, whether by old habit or deliberate pattern of protection – both, Batty decided, for the man he protected was clearly the one who mattered.

  This one was slouched in a plush chair – the only one the Old Brig possessed – and made a deep growling sigh when he saw Batty, like some great cat circling and settling on a warm spot. Fifties, Batty thought, with enough hair and grooming to be considered handsome still, though the mouth was too thin-lipped. A large head and the body impressive, though it was hard to tell because of the cloak he had round his shoulders, which seemed to consist of half a pelt. The rain had spiked and darkened it so that he looked like a big-ruffed wolf.

  Which is what he is, Batty decided. Mad Jack Musgrave, the Buzzard of Bewcastle.

  He was aware of Red Rowan’s scowl next to him – and that it was more curious than angry. This was reversed when the Buzzard turned a predatory stare on him.

  ‘You. Out.’

  Red Rowan’s hackles went up at that, but he paused only a moment. The other man made a slight sound which might have been a laugh as the Sergeant turned back out the door, stiff with as much dignity as he could muster.

  Musgrave shifted in his fine perse – black-purple, slashed to show the cramoisie underneath Batty saw. Black and crimson, like some prelate.

  ‘Doff your hat.’

  Batty raised a solitary eyebrow at that – then the hat. Musgrave grunted.

  ‘Batty Coalhouse,’ he said.

  ‘It was me yesterday,’ Batty answered. ‘I am hoping it will be the morn’s morn.’

  ‘Less of your lip.’

  This from the other man, a long streak of languid with a wee barbered fringe of beard and moustache, nervous fingers and bitten nails caressing the fancifully looped hilt of a thin sword. An espada ropera, Batty saw, a Spanish weapon for cut-and-thrust defence. For duellists.

  ‘That is a fine hat,’ Musgrave said and Batty glanced at his headgear and laid it on the table between them with a rueful grin. It was a plumed confection, that hat, and wind, weather and war had done much to reduce the look of the blue and white panache.

  ‘Given out by Arran to his captains,’ Musgrave went on. ‘Albeit worn by someone more at home with a blue bonnet. Or a burgonet.’

  He spoke as if words cost, spitting them out in fits and starts. Batty stayed silent, though he took in what he learned. The Earl of Arran, Regent of Scotland, was much given to plumes and sashes for his commanders, though he was unhappy to be anywhere near fighting. There he would start to panic and yell, wild brindled hair and beard flying, berating those around him like dogs the whole time – but give him politicking and he was a steady and sure hand.

  Musgrave knew all this. Knew that Batty was captain to some of the Regent’s hired French and Italian gunners and had been at Ancrum; despite himself, the sweat started to move like lice down Batty’s backbone and round the curve of his belly.

  ‘I paid your fine,’ Musgrave went on and Batty acknowledged it with a flap of one hand.

  ‘I will send the money round,’ he declared loftily.

  ‘You will send no coin,’ Musgrave said coldly, ‘for you have none. I tell you this because I offer you some – an Angel each seven-day for as long as I deem fit to need you.’

  Batty squinted.

  ‘For why?’

  ‘For your skills,’ Musgrave declared. ‘Slow match, they call you, for the way putting you at any matter always results in explosion. Fyrebrande, for the same reason.’

  He leaned forward a little.

  ‘I am interested in the last name you have. Corbie. From the way a Billed man can run and jink and birl and think himself safe – until he turns and finds you waiting, like a corbie in a tree looking at a dying sheep.’

  ‘I have sought out men with fouled Bills,’ Batty admitted slowly. ‘For Wardens,’ he added pointedly. ‘On both sides o’ the divide.’

  ‘You did not recently blow up an Armstrong fortalice in the Debateable on behalf of the Wardens,’ Musgrave answered flatly, then offered a twist of thin grin. ‘Though I am sure they were pleasantried of it.’

  Batty had no answer to it, for the memories of that time, what was done and why were part of the reason for him drinking himself into the Tolbooth.

  ‘You are a Scot, fair caught on the wrong side of the divide,’ Musgrave declared. ‘A known master of ordnance, so either buying or selling same, which is a hanging offence. Or spying, which…’

  ‘Is a hanging offence,’ Batty interrupted wearily. ‘I tak’ your point. You have offered carrot and whacked me with stick. What is it you wish?’

  ‘I said to watch your lip,’ the thin man declared and uncoiled like a striking snake. Batty did what he always did with snakes – he took it by the neck before it could get a fang out. The man gurgled and thrashed, appalled by the speed and the strength of that single arm.

  The air was thick and coiling; the man writhed and Batty felt the throat-apple quiver like a trapped bird as he choked. Batty showed the man’s purpling face a delight of yellowed teeth grin.

  The slap started them all; Batty let the thin man go and he fell back, coughing, one hand at his throat and his face a bag of blood. His other hand was fumbling for a hilt when Musgrave slapped the table once more; Batty’s hat shifted with the wind of it.

  ‘Mind my plumes,’ Batty offered mildly and waited while the hackles sank, slow and unhappy. Musgrave shifted.

  ‘This is my associate,’ he offered. ‘Master Cadwaller Rutland, gentleman.’

  Rutland was a court-rat, though Batty doubted he had the means or manners for Henry’s own, or even the Scottish one. A much lesser light then – the neat little chain round his ravaged neck was a clue, a white enamelled and gold-ringed affectation terminating in a little ruby kine with a crowned collar. The red Dacre Bull.

  The picture cleared, like the settling ripples of a pool. Mad Jack Musgrave of Bewcastle had been elevated to knighthood only recently, thanks to his joint leadership of the little Border reiver force which had scattered a Scots army at Solway Moss. That had caused King James to roll over and die of shame and all the country’s present troubles.

  The other commander had been Sir Thomas Dacre, a bastard sired of the Baron Dacre of Gilsland. Sir Thom had also been knighted by a grateful, exultant King Henry, so he and Mad Jack were joined at the helm and Mad Jack was known as his man. Enough nowadays to be known as the Bastard’s Buzzard, though never to his face, Batty recalled.

  Thomas Dacre of Lanercost and Musgrave of Bewcastle, a godless brace of bad cess; Batty found it strange that the Bastard’s name should still be echoing in his head from the earlier events in the Tolbooth, but he put it from him as Musgrave started to tell him what he wanted.

  ‘I need your tracking skills,’ Musgrave said eventually, while Rutland tried to breathe quietly and failed. Batty merely nodded, for it was always best to keep a cliff of a face when your cards were poor, in life as in Primero.

  ‘You led rebellion, I hear,’ Musgrave said suddenly. ‘In the Saxonies. Ower religion.’r />
  He paused, as if expecting a reply and when none came, he scowled.

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘That I led it, or that it was religion?’

  ‘Both,’ Musgrave spat back. ‘And do not cozen me, else I will be the one seizing throats, Master Coalhouse. I will do it with a hemp rope, all the same.’

  Batty thought about matters a bit longer, enough to rasp Musgrave, whom he now did not care for at all.

  ‘I did not lead it, nor was it religious,’ he answered. Not remotely – it was because a noble had taken Uncle Hans Kohlhase’s finest horses as surety for a toll payment, promised on Hans’ return. Then the noble kept them until forced to return them and when he did, they were foundered and useless.

  ‘The Law favoured the noble,’ Batty added wryly at the end of telling this, ‘and my Uncle Hans did not accept the judgement.’

  Musgrave nodded.

  ‘There have been worse feuds over less,’ he answered and there was only truth in that, as a Border man like him would know well.

  ‘So you are not a godly man, then?’ Musgrave said and Batty was frowning puzzled now. What is Mad Jack’s great concern over my soul, he thought? Certainly there had been the Devil in what had been done by the Kohlhases afterwards, when they found themselves brigands.

  Batty said as much and Musgrave nodded.

  ‘In these Reformed times,’ he said, ‘it is always best to know who still holds to Confession and High Mass. Here in the north, we are less down on the affair.’

  Is he telling me he is Catholic? Batty thought about it and decided it could be true; as Musgrave said – there were lots of folk in England’s north who held to the Catholic religion and almost all Scotland still did. Still, the nobility who looked for Fat Henry’s favour did not shout it aloud.

  Musgrave looked sideways at Batty a little longer, then drew the fur collar of his cloak up a little, as if there was a chill breeze somewhere.

  ‘I have a sister,’ he said, ‘who is a nun.’

  He let that hang for a moment and Batty said nothing.

  ‘She was coming north to me, to safety after her convent was… Reformed. Last I heard of her she was at York. That was two weeks ago and there has been nothing since.’

  ‘Which route was she taking?’

  Musgrave appraised Batty with an admiring eye; no hesitation, no sly hem and haw about what was needed so that the money got on the table first.

  ‘Three carts and three trusted men of mine to drive them,’ he said brusquely. ‘Coming up to Kirknewton, then across to me.’

  Long road for a shortcut, Batty thought, which is strange – Kirknewton is a bliddy awful place, whose very kirk is famous only because of the fallen flowers of Flodden buried there. Flodden field was a spit away and few travelled that road, for the memory was raw and the ghosts walked, so folk claimed.

  ‘Three carts?’ was all he said aloud.

  Musgrave shifted slightly.

  ‘She was bringing some of her… sisters,’ he said shortly and Batty rocked a little at that. Bigod – a wheen of nuns, wheeling through a country which had given the least of its folk the right to scourge and dismember them. And worse. Small wonder Mad Jack is concerned about my religion, Batty thought. Less about my skin.

  It was not an enterprise he cared for and said so. Besides, without word for so long, it was more than possible they were all already discovered. For delicacy, Batty did not add details on the inevitable outcome of that.

  Musgrave was no fool, though and never winced at the possibilities.

  ‘Find them, alive or… otherwise,’ he answered piously. ‘If it is possible, save my sister.’

  Not the others if they get in the way was what was unsaid and Batty did not doubt Mad Jack would sacrifice a deal more for it. Everything, he thought, but the Musgrave Name, recently raised to the nobility and more proud and dignified than other, more established families.

  A single one-armed notorious such as Batty Coalhouse would cause little regard if he headed south to find some nuns and would be no loss if he was never heard from again, or caught with a parcel of wimple-wearers.

  No one would believe tales of working on behalf of Jack Musgrave of Bewcastle even if they waited long enough to hear them afore setting my hurdies on fire, he thought.

  Batty hoiked all this up aloud and used the name besides – the Bastard’s Buzzard. He was baiting a fighting bear with a stick, he knew, so was surprised when Musgrave did not seem put out; in fact, he smiled, which made Batty’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Aye, right enough,’ Mad Jack answered, ‘You would know of bad cess names, mind you, having a wheen of your own. But you will do it, all the same.’

  ‘I dinna think so, Sir Jack. I have little need of nuns and would not know God if he bussed me on either cheek.’

  Musgrave’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘You need the coin, though. And you will hang if you don’t.’

  Batty squinted at him, then nodded.

  ‘Aye, the coin would be a blessing, no doubt of it. Your carrot is good, but your stick is wormy. I have committed no crime in Berwick and if I have changed saltire for St George, it is all to the good of England, is it not? Who would not want ingeniateur Batty Coalhouse for their ordnance? Or as a wee pricker, scouting out the land ahead? You have proved that yourself.’

  Musgrave brought his brows down – then laughed. It was not what Batty expected, nor what he wanted to hear, for it was the scrape of nail on the slate of his nerves.

  ‘You are good, Master Coalhouse,’ Musgrave declared fruitily and waved to Rutland, who rose unsteadily – Batty watched him warily – and went to the door. He called, his voice hoarse and had to do it twice before he was heard. Someone came up, clumping heavily on the steps and handed him a paper.

  ‘I hear you play Primero well when sober,’ Musgrave said while Rutland delivered it to his hand.

  ‘No game is played well when drunk,’ Batty muttered, anxious now about what was in the paper. Paper with writing on it never boded well when the Coalhouse name was somewhere included, he knew. A writ, mayhap, giving Musgrave the right of pit and gallows?

  ‘Aye, well, Primero is a game of bluff when all is said and done,’ Musgrave mused. ‘You have played a fine hand here, I will avow you that. But now – knock or draw to mine, Batty.’

  He laughed and held out the paper, so that Batty scowled.

  ‘I do not read,’ he declared. Musgrave smiled even more broadly and waved the paper at Batty until he took it.

  ‘Find one you trust and who can. You will see it is a contract, all perjink and legal. It promises to pay you an agreed sum for the successful outcome of an enterprise on behalf of the Musgrave of Bewcastle.’

  He paused and his stare was a gimlet on Batty’s own.

  ‘The other is the order, issued in Bewcastle placing Rafael Sabin, right-hand of Fabrizio Maramaldo, Captain General of a company of mercenaries, in the jail there while awaiting trial for treason, brigandage and worse.’

  He leaned forward, and the smile on him never crawled as high as his eyes.

  ‘To avoid the hemp, Sabin will reveal to you the whereabouts of Maramaldo.’

  Chapter Two

  South of Berwick on the Tweed

  A day later…

  The wind was wicked and playful, picking up the quern-fine rain as it sifted down through a leering lout of sunlight and scattering it. If it was gold dust as it looked, Batty thought, we would all be richer than old King Croesus.

  He rode with an itch on his back, an old feeling he had learned to trust – there was someone following him. Batty hoped that it was probably a Musgrave man, sent to watch and see what Batty did and where he went. Or it could have been the brace Red Rowan mentioned when he’d taken Musgrave’s paper to him and got him to read it; it was exactly as Musgrave had said and Red Rowan, naturally enough, wanted to know the details, starting with the shine.

  Batty told him – five pounds, English, which was now his set fee for most
enterprises.

  ‘And the enterprise?’ asked Red Rowan. ‘This Rafael Sabin who is held in Bewcastle gaol?’

  He huffed and ruffed like a damp dog when Batty refused to tell him, then hitched up his belt and hooked his thumbs in it.

  ‘I would take on the task of it,’ he said, ‘for only two things stink after a week – fish and an unwanted guest. You have worn out your welcome in Berwick toon, Batty. Besides, men are seeking you.’

  ‘Men?’

  Red Rowan had taken a deal of satisfaction and time, revenge for Batty’s refusal to allay his curiosity over Musgrave’s task. Then he had admitted that at least two, possibly more, had been asking after Batty Coalhouse.

  ‘I suspect Wallis men, looking for revenge for Tam,’ he added and spread his hands. ‘I have no proof of this, o’ course, so cannot arrest either, for they have broken no law in Berwick.’

  You would find one if you could be bothered, Batty thought viciously, but had taken the advice and left, wondering if Sabin would really reveal the whereabouts of Maramaldo. That was the true shining reward for this enterprise.

  More to the point was how Sabin had come to be in shackles, a question Batty had put to the smiling Mad Jack.

  ‘Caught rievin’ nolt, no less, with a parcel of ribboned rogues,’ Musgrave had replied. ‘We hanged them and kept him.’

  Rafael Sabin’s name had sent a feeling through Batty from crown to heel, a chill so cold it was fired. He remembered Sabin, a face as grim as plague atop a body thin as a spiderleg as he watched Maramaldo wield the axe on Batty’s arm, his sallow face showing only curiosity, his dark hair, which always looked wet, dagged to his cheeks. Twenty years ago at least, he recalled and was made aware of his own age and fat by it.

  ‘He recalls you,’ Musgrave had said ‘and feels remorse. He did not care for what was done to you then.’

  Did nothing, all the same, Batty thought now, hunching up under the rain and wondering what he’d have done if the positions had been reversed. Then he thought about the rogues Musgrave had hanged – four of them, Mad Jack declared and called them Landsknechts because that was what Border folk called all the paid men of armies.