Burning the Water

by Robert Low

  Horner, wiping himself down, had managed a wan smile, though it never reached his eyes. He had looked at the horse, then the clenched crouch of Klett’s company and picked his hat out of the mud.

  ‘Meinherr Klett,’ he had said. ‘Oblige me by removing that offence.’

  Klett remembered that he had not liked to be treated like some servant, nor appreciated this pressure put upon his skills. Yet he could not refuse it easily and had swung out of his saddle while everyone watched with interest and the marrano Cornelius scuttled up with a tall, leather-covered edifice.

  The great leather cover came off and what most had taken to be a lance was unveiled as a long hackbut gun. Even those who had seen it before, whistled with admiration and Horner saw Klett smile, the first time this had happened.

  ‘That is a fine thing to see,’ Horner had admitted, then stopped speaking entirely, for the affair was not a matchlock as he had thought, but a wheel-lock. Horner, who had only heard of Klett’s marvellous engine, had never seen such a thing in his life and said so.

  ‘It is made by my father and brothers,’ Klett had answered, with pride.

  It was longer by a foot than a tall man, the octagonal barrel decorated with filed and cut cannelures, ornamented with engravings. There was a strange ornamental saw-blade hook halfway along it but Horner had watched as Klett unscrewed it and put it carefully in a pouch.

  ‘What do you think of my Wall Gun, Master Horner?’

  ‘Is that what it is?’ Horner had declared, seeing what the hook was for – bracing the monster on a wall or beam. It meant the kick of it was fearsome and he shook his head.

  ‘For shooting at artillery batteries,’ Klett added.

  ‘If you can hit anything,’ Horner had remarked mildly, then eyed the tower and the small figure darting about on it. The German had moved his weapon closer, making sure he was out of range of the shooter’s own weapon, which meant a long shot for any gun – no caliver could make it and few hackbuts, none with any chance of hitting.

  Cornelius had then brought a second leather bag and Klett unpacked a contraption of hooped wood and spokes – a small two-wheeled carriage. The barrel hook had been removed, Horner had seen, to facilitate the fitting of the gun to the hoop on the carriage.

  He had marvelled as Klett loaded the great weapon – the ball was a quarter-pound if it was an ounce, he thought – then fixed the entire affair to the little hooped carriage using trunnions built into the barrel.

  That will bring the kick of it down a deal, Horner thought, but still…

  There had been another bang and fountain of smoke from the tower, but it was clear it was more in hope than expectation; Klett had lain down behind his weapon on the least muddy patch of grass, legs splayed and toes turned outwards. He’d dug his feet into the soft turf a few times and padded his shoulder before snugging the butt to it.

  Horner had watched with narrowed eyes – the gun was not held under the arm, then, but up at the shoulder, for better steadiness and sighting. There had been a flicker of movement up on the tower roof, then the familiar whirr and spark, the blast of noise and a fountain of smoke. When it cleared, Horner had seen that Klett’s feet had scored an inch or two of rut.

  ‘High and to the left,’ Klett had declared and Horner had spotted the fresh, bright scar on the old stone – Christ, if that even passes near you, it will whip off a limb, he’d thought. Or your head – if it doesn’t break the shooter’s ankles.

  After a long reload, the second blast from Klett’s gun had blown a deal of stone chips everywhere. The third shot had seemed to miss entirely – then a figure rose up on the tower, shrieked and fell away; men had cheered.

  ‘Well done Meinheer Klett,’ Horner had said, but the German had merely nodded, then indicated his men as he started to pack up the weapon.

  ‘They still will not rush it,’ he had said flatly. ‘Even nuns can shoot.’

  So matters had remained since, for no one wanted to risk it and the decision to let thirst and fear corrode the resolve of mere nuns had seemed sensible at the time. The youngest lads, Johannes and Locan, had been left to watch, irritating everyone with their capering; each bang of the defender’s guns let Klett knew that the nuns were tough as old chooks and not about to give in easily.

  Now Johannes and Locan were stabbed to death and there was a mysterious third party at this fayre, which had gone on too long already; Klett did not like it and said so. He was surprised when Horner seemed unworried.

  ‘This new arrival may be a messenger I am expecting,’ he declared and Klett bridled at this revelation of secrets kept from him. He demanded answers, but Horner only shrugged. Klett had had enough.

  ‘If your messenger announces his presence by murdering two of my lads,’ he growled, ‘then he had better be quick in delivering it. Quicker than the kinch of rope round his neck.’

  ‘It seems unlikely,’ Horner admitted, ‘but mayhap your lads surprised him and gave him no choice. Of course, he may have killed no one and we are conflating the events. I would prefer anyone you find to be alive and brought to me.’

  ‘I have few men for such a luxury,’ Klett spat back. ‘Two fewer than this morning.’

  ‘Then do not sit here, all louche and goggling. Rush the tower,’ Horner rasped.

  ‘More will die so if we rush in,’ Klett answered. ‘Captain General Maramaldo will need a deal of golden balm to soothe his rage at losing so many to this enterprise.’

  ‘You have already lost two men,’ Horner pointed out. ‘If you had stormed the place at the start…’

  ‘Do not presume to tell me my business,’ Klett answered coldly.

  ‘Someone must,’ Horner replied, flushing from chin to hair roots. ‘I am a gentleman and will not be spoken to like some servitor by the captain of a company afraid of a handful of nuns.’

  Klett did not like Horner, nor his frequent snide hints that he was party to plans and decisions made by the Captain General himself. He had even suggested that the Company’s contract was, in part, with himself; Klett had dismissed that, of course, but his unease at being kept in the dark did not make him diplomatic with this puffed popinjay.

  ‘You are, if your claim is true, nothing at all,’ he spat back. ‘Former steward to the former Abbot of Glastonbury, who was hung and drawn for treason in 1539.’

  Horner fell silent and gnawed his nails for a bit.

  ‘True enough,’ he admitted. ‘but he died without revealing where the treasure of Glastonbury was hid. I know. It is here, with those nuns.’

  ‘So you told Maramaldo,’ muttered Klett. ‘Here, with those armed nuns, you said. And now someone else knows of it.’

  Horner leaned forward, his eyes all glitter and gimlet.

  ‘Then hunt him down,’ he said. ‘And take the tower. I have spent too long on this enterprise to be thwarted at the last.’

  He paused and then delivered the cut he knew would wound Klett to the quick.

  ‘There are greater events at play than you know, Meinheer Klett.’

  Not far away…

  The lark was too astonished at the noise and could only hover, but Batty was not watching her as he sang, he was watching the buzzard.

  ‘He slew my knight, to me so dear; He slew my knight, and poined his gear,’ he crooned, while the lark fluttered indignation at the noise and the buzzard sat in a gnarled tree for a contemplative moment. When it launched off its branch down into the grass, Batty knew what he would find; his tune became rank.

  ‘My servants all for life did flee, and left me in extremitie…’

  The singing ended when he came on the bodies, the buzzard flapping off in interrupted disgust while the early, gorged ravens could only hop and waddle, too full to fly. They stood a little way off, wings outstretched and beaks open, hissing bad cess at Batty.

  The man had been spread-eagled and staked out through his palms, but not before his privates had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth. His eyelids, nose and ears had been sliced of
f, an eye gouged out with a stick and he had been used as a target for archers or spearmen. Maybe even lances, Batty thought as he hunkered and tried to keep the spit in his mouth; he looked round then, not wanting to find prickers riding up on him.

  But this was not the work of Border horse, he thought. This is the work of mercenaries hardened in rape and plundering – Maramaldo men, who wanted answers to questions from this man and had taken a good hour to kill their victim. The slit belly had been all business – looking for swallowed coin and trinkets – the sliced eyelids and other parts had all been to inflict horror and pain enough to force information out.

  But the target practice had been all fun; Batty thought of the boy with the longbow and spat the memory of him into the grass.

  They had taken even longer with the woman – another nun, Batty saw. The ravens had been an unkindness to what the mercenaries left and Batty covered the thing with her torn, plain dress, stripped from her right at the start. Rape had only been the beginning of her terror and pain.

  He sat back on his heels and swilled spit round his gums to try and rinse the foul out of his mouth while he wondered what they had been wanting to know. He found the inevitable black robes, ripped from their hiding place and flung away as worthless; he covered the corpse with them.

  No place for me, this, Batty thought levering himself up and squinting up at the weak sun. Lowering, he thought, though I can be in Wooler vill before it goes, providing I take no time for anything else. Like burying folk.

  Then he thought of the nun under her black robe and the one he had found burned and the one whose eyes and face thrust out of his mind’s darkest recess to stare him in the conscience. He cursed.

  It will be the nuns in it, Batty thought, bringing up the memory of the one in Florence whom I might have saved if Michaelangelo had not dragged me away. Or I had let drag me away…

  ‘I sewed his sheet, making my mane; I watched the corpse, myself alane,’ Batty sang as he levered himself up and swung Fiskie’s head round. ‘I watched his body, night and day; no living creature came that way.’

  The lark gave up in disgust and whirred into the moor while Batty rode back the way he had come, hunching into a new fall of rain.

  Even closer…

  His arse burned from too long in the saddle and the insides of his thighs were chafed because he had not dried out properly after the last rain. He could have done so, but the ragged peasants in the mean cruck house he had sheltered in had taken offence and he had thought it wiser to quit.

  After taking all his money, Rutland noted bitterly, which was more than enough to compensate for the rogering of their filthy daughter, who’d had the temerity to ask for more and then set up an outcry when properly dismissed like the peasant she was.

  Rutland hated this; the hills and moors were no place for him and he wished for Bewcastle at least. He wished for Edinburgh, in truth and dreamed of London as some faraway Camelot…

  But here he was, following Mad Jack’s instructions and tracking like some native of the Indies – though the truth was that he had no idea about tracking at all and was moving in the general direction the peasant scum had told him. Before they threw him out.

  He would have given up long since, but the burn of his throat was with him still and would be until he revenged it. Find the German soldiery or Master Horner, he had been instructed. Give the message by mouth, for nothing was written for folk who may not have had the skill of reading it anyway. Return.

  Cadwaller Rutland did not like being a fetching dog, but he was also canny enough to know that he had little choice, was clinging on to the office of gentleman by a cunny-hair. So he had followed everyone’s instructions – including the filthy peasant scum’s directions – right to a dead nun and a cart driver.

  He wondered if the man was Batty and, after a long time of trying not to be sick and waving away flies, got enough of a look to see two arms. Rutland was not disappointed – he had a score to settle with that one-armed fud, but he would have to wait his turn in the queue.

  He dwelt lovingly on that all the long way over the rolling Cheviot hills, peering and squinting to try and find some semblance of a trail that looked more than a faint sheep-track, but could not tell one scuff from another. Near Akeld, he had been told, but was none the wise for that, though he kept scanning for signs of a dwelling. Any dwelling; his arse hurt and his back ached and he wanted hot food, strong drink and a decent sleep.

  He was so intent on it that he did not realise there were men coming up on him until one seized the bridle of his horse.

  Startled, Rutland jerked and his horse reared, spilling him from the saddle with a thump. He heard men laugh mockingly and struggled up, fighting for breath, to see three of them, sitting on rough-coated nags.

  They were strange, bedecked with ribbons and a cut of clothing that Rutland knew instinctively was foreign and particular. Mercenaries; he fumbled out his sword and struck the proper pose.

  ‘I warn you,’ he said and a man laughed. He was hard-eyed and scarred down one cheek and did not seem facered by Cadwaller Rutland, duellist.

  ‘Any little throwing knives left?’ asked another in execrable French and Rutland, bewildered, had no reply to this.

  ‘What do you think, Cadette?’ the man asked and the scarred one shrugged, then jerked his chin at Rutland.

  ‘Take him.’

  The others dismounted and Rutland backed off a little way, watching; the two men unlimbered big practical backswords and eyed him warily.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I have come…’

  One of them lunged and blades clanged. There was a flurry and the man reeled backwards cursing and holding his wrist where Rutland’s rapier had pinked him. Rutland smiled; he did not know what language the man was spitting oaths in, but he knew fear and pain when he heard it.

  ‘Look,’ he said patiently. ‘Take me to your captain. There are matters he needs to know.’

  The other one hesitated and Cadette looked disgusted at him, then hawked and spat meaningfully.

  ‘In the name of Christ,’ he said, shaking his head with disgust. Rutland whipped the rapier back and forth with little hissing sounds.

  ‘It would be better for you to do as you are bid,’ he declared, arrogant and annoyed now. ‘Take me to your captain. Before someone else is hurt.’

  ‘I think not,’ Cadette said flatly, hauled the dagg out of his belt. He blew on the slow match wound round his wrist, touched off the one on the dagg, pointed and fired. All the while Rutland watched, astounded.

  It hissed at the pan for a bit, so that Rutland had time to be shocked out of his silence, time to say ‘no’ exactly twice and put up his free hand, palm out, as if to block the effects. Then the great bang sent a lump of shot ripping through him, hurling him backwards out of the fountain of smoke, rolling him over and over; horses squealed and Rutland’s mount bolted.

  Cadette pinched out the slow match and stuffed the pistol back in his belt.

  ‘Fetch back his horse,’ he ordered one of the men, ‘and load him up. Klett will want to see his cuckoo. Alive would have been preferred, but only that Horner one cared for that. Dead will do.’

  Not long after…

  The ravens were getting sorely tired of Batty Coalhouse and wearily flapped off in disgust as he came up, cat-cautious and with his one fist loaded with axe-handled dagg.

  He had taken a circled route back to where he had started, to where the burned nun lay and was halfway round the curve of it when the shot wafted faintly out of the late afternoon twilight. It made him rein in and sit for a while, thinking it over while the rain sifted down and Fiskie blew out displeasure in soft snorts of disgust.

  In the end, Batty cut across to where he thought the sound had come from, though he was thinking that it was foolish all the time he was doing it. When he came on the churned earth and the blood that had so interested the ravens he spent a long time watching, until he was sure only the ravens, himself and his horse were al
ive in the place.

  Someone was shot, probably dead, by three or four men who came on him over a crest – the earth and all the blood told Batty that much, but who had done what to whom remained a mystery, as did the reason they had carted off the body. Still alive, after all that had leaked from him? Then the sun leered bloodily off some glitter in a fern patch.

  Batty found the culprit and picked it up. Fell off when he was hoisted on to a horse, he thought to himself. Dead or alive, probably the former but it was no matter – they would take him back to the others at Akeld and consider that they had found the killer of their two men. Which, Batty thought, is useful to me.

  He tossed the little ruby bull in the palm of his hand before stuffing it inside his jack. Poor wee Cadwaller Rutland, he thought, dead in my stead and so has served me a good turn, though he will never know it.

  Why the likes of Rutland had been sent out bothered him for a while – a wee court-rat like that, useless as hen shite on a pump handle out in the Border wilds? Sent on a particular task by Mad Jack – it was hardly likely to be about tracking me, Batty thought. Wee Rutland could not find his hurdies with both arms, let alone follow me across the Cheviot wild – so where was he riding?

  But there were more pressing worries and he lost the thought somewhere along the whin and gorse, had it pushed out by the face of the nun in the tower. It would not leave him alone and the more he worried at it, the more it became impossible to put down.

  Batty rode on into the blood-egg tremble of sunset and reached the burned nun by last light; the packhorse was still there, cropping grass unconcerned and came up, glad to meet another of his kind and exchanging nuzzles with Fiskie.

  The nun had not improved any and the birds and beasts had not helped, so it took Batty all his time to force himself to the task, trying to be quiet because he was so close to where he did not want to be.

  He managed the nun on to the re-saddled packhorse and fastened her there with pack-straps until she lolled, grim, blackened and stiffly grinning. It was awkward work one-handed and the packhorse did not care for it much, so it was dark by the time he had finished. In the end, though, the packhorse turned out to be such a docile beast that Batty felt bad about what had to be done. But now that he had made his mind up, he wanted it done swiftly; he was too close to the bastel house and the tower to linger long fastening a dead nun on to a horse.