A Clash of Spheres

by P. F. Chisholm

“He willna do it.”

  “He will. Come on wi’ us, missus, we havenae got all day.”

  Very slowly Janet hitched the unwilling sleepy ponies to the cart and then gave them nosebags as a reward. She hitched Shilling to the cart as well. Even more slowly she tidied up after them, found a glove, a sock, and two crossbow bolts left behind, and then went to the head of the lead pony and took off the nosebags. They got the cart out of the barn and started up the hill to get out of Liddesdale, the worst part of the March. Wee Colin and his fifty raiders paced beside and around her.

  It was mostly Elliot country, she knew that, but wondered if there might be any Dodds or Armstrongs around—except Skinabake, of course. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. If you’re willing to sell out your second cousin, what else might you do? She didn’t think there would be any Dodds, and if there had been once, there certainly wouldn’t be any now. Besides, she was an English Armstrong and she did know that her father would be highly delighted to raid the Elliot herds with a cast-iron excuse.

  Wee Colin would not let her be, asking her questions and seeming unoffended at her stony silence. “What d’ye know of our bloodfeud wi’ the Dodds?” he asked once and she said, “I know ye lost.”

  “Ay, we did,” he said, tapping his teeth with his thumb. He smiled easily, did Colin Elliot. “And what did ye make of the doings at Dick of Dryhope’s tower?”

  “Ye lost that too,” she told him. “Worse, ye were outmaneovred and then ye looked frightened. Were ye?”

  “Frightened? Ay, Ah was,” said Wee Colin affably and she looked at him sidelong. “Yer Deputy Warden had us lined up for the slaughter between the pikes and the arquebuses. I fought in the Netherlands maself for a few years, I knew what he was at. Never expected to see it on the Border.”

  Janet made a short “huh” noise.

  “Ay,” said Wee Colin, “I didna fancy it. I hear Henry Dodd’s offended at the Deputy for letting us get away.”

  She decided to go back into silence and anyway they were going steeply uphill on a very rocky road and poor Shilling was groaning and puffing even though he wasn’t pulling anything. Widow Ridley had already got down to walk, her knitting needles clicking away.

  “Tugger, Wattie’s Watt, Blind Jock, and Eckie, come over here and help wi’ the cart,” ordered Wee Colin and four of the men came over and started helping to push the cart and get it over the worst rocks in the road. They complained about it but not very much, which was impressive.

  “How far to yer tower?” Widow Ridley asked in a querulous voice.

  “We’ll see where we are come nightfall, Mrs Ridley. I’m expecting it to snow,” said Wee Colin. “Why is the cart so heavy?”

  “It’s full of linen,” said Janet. “We were taking it all to Edinburgh to sell.”

  “Och,” Wee Colin shook his head. “That’s a pity. I wis hoping ye had some food there.”

  “I have, but not enough for all your gang.”

  “I’d take it very kindly if ye’d share with us.”

  Janet sighed. It wasn’t as if she had a choice and at least he was asking politely. “Bread, cheese, sausage, in the hemp bags. Help yerselves.”

  “Your kin have gone to fetch Will the Tod.”

  “Ay, my father,” Janet said. “I hope so.”

  For some reason Wee Colin laughed again. “He’ll be out in a day or two, barring snow, mebbe four days if he calls on William of Kinmount. He’s got ten days for the hot trod.”

  Janet didn’t dignify that with an answer. She could feel his eyes on her, shrugged. What would happen, would happen, and there was very little she could do about it now. The whole expedition had been a daft idea. She had been wood even to think of it, and if both she and Henry got out of it alive, she wouldn’t blame Henry if he decided to beat her black and blue.

  Wee Colin Elliot was the headman of a large surname and had been for ten years. His tower was the biggest of all their towers but that was not where they went as the skies darkened over their heads to purple. Instead they stopped at a little tower a way from the road to Hawick, no more than a fortified house with a squat keep and a strong fence around it. He didn’t explain whose it was and Janet didn’t ask.

  And yet Mrs Elliot was there to welcome them at the gate. She was a Fenwick and Janet curtseyed to her since it didn’t hurt to be polite and Widow Ridley did the best she could with her knees as they were.

  They were led up the stairs in the tower, to the third floor where the family lived. Janet caught a glimpse of a woman with a veil around her face peering at her and another older woman who smiled friendlywise, and she and Widow Ridley were led into a little chamber with a truckle bed in it and a jordan and nothing else. On the bed there was a tray of gritty bread, cheese, and pickled onions and a pottle of ale which was very welcome, for both of them were hungry. Nor did they lock the door on her which surprised her but she was too tired to do more than tiptoe to see out of the arrowslit. Dusk was coming on and the ugly black clouds coming from the northeast made a sour smell on the wind.

  She sighed and sat on the bed next to Widow Ridley who was unpinning her hair, taking her cap off, and attempting to plait her hair. Janet watched her struggle for a minute and then tapped her shoulder and took over the job. They ate their supper in silence and Janet put the tray on the floor when they had finished.

  She wished she had her Bible to read. She was getting better and better at reading though she still had to read it aloud to herself, as Henry did too, and she was right in the middle of the exciting bits about David. To her surprise, the linen was still in the cart with the barrels and about half of the food. It hadn’t been pillaged as she expected and she had seen it pushed into a storage shed. The horses had all been unhitched, given some feed and settled for the night in a stable nearby. Again that was a surprise. She would have expected them to be sent to the paddock to mix with their new stablemates, not given expensive grain.

  “I wish…” she started.

  “Ye wish I hadnae tellt ye about they witchy things and the man that bribed Sergeant Dodd.”

  “Yes,” said Janet, annoyed at being so easily read.

  “Ay well, he may surprise ye, Wee Colin, he’s got a steady head on him.” She was knitting again, turning the heel.

  “If you told him…”

  “Nay, how would I do that, d’ye think I’m a witch? But I think mebbe Wee Colin Elliot’s been waiting for this day for a long weary while.”

  Janet nodded. It was a good answer to Dick of Dryhope’s tower. Dodd’s blood enemy now had her as his prisoner. Nothing good could come of that. All she could hope for was that her father would come for her but now she thought about it, why should he? There was ransom to be demanded and, depending on the price, paid or argued over. Henry wouldn’t like that. He wouldn’t like it that Skinabake had clearly sold her to the Elliots, and he wouldn’t like it that she had been taken on her way to Edinburgh. He wouldn’t like having to go so far into Elliot territory to rescue her. They had all heard and laughed at the tale of Geordie Burn in the Middle March being fooled when he took Lady Elizabeth Widdrington. She didn’t think anything like that would happen to her. Why had Skinabake sold her? It had been going well enough until then.

  She shut her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip to stop herself crying. Widow Ridley was already tucked up in bed, still knitting and powering through the foot of the sock.

  “Och hinny,” she said, “come ben tae bed. What can ye do about it now?”

  ***

  In the morning nothing was any better. It was cold and the clouds were still hanging low and threatening over the little valley with a sprinkling of sugar on the hillsides but it was too cold to snow. There was no fire in the room and so they stayed in bed and Janet dozed while Widow Ridley finished off the sock and cast on another one.

  Eventually booted feet came up to the door and a
spotty girl came in with a tray of more gritty bread, cheese, and ale for them both, and took the old tray away. Janet started pacing, facing the first day of inactivity since last winter but this time she hadn’t even any linen to hem. It felt very strange to have her hands doing nothing and she found they got up to peculiar antics, twisting and knitting round themselves.

  By an hour later she was enraged that the jordan was full so she tried the door and found it unlocked, since it was distance that imprisoned them, not walls. She took the jordan, fully prepared to throw it in the face of anyone who questioned her.

  On the narrow stairs she met Colin Elliot’s wife, the serious-looking brown-haired woman she had curtseyed to the night before. She curtseyed again because it was her tower and said, “Will ye show me where to tip this, Mrs Elliot?”

  There was a pause. “I told Annie to empty it in the morning when she brought your breakfast,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

  “Ay, well, she didna.”

  “This way,” and Mrs Elliot showed her out to the yard where she tipped it onto the dungheap and sluiced it in a buck of rainwater.

  She went to go upstairs again and Mrs Elliot hesitated and then said, “I’d like tae speak tae ye, Mrs Dodd, if ye’ve the leisure?”

  Well that was prettily put. Janet nodded. “I’ll go and help Mrs Ridley to get dressed,” she said, “then we’ll both come down.”

  Widow Ridley was very happy to come down to the second-floor hall of the tower where there was a good fire burning in the great fireplace. They sat side by side on a bench while Mrs Elliot took the chair with arms. Girls were running in and out with table linen and there was a large log sitting burning slowly in the fireplace and holly and ivy decorating the walls.

  “Mrs Dodd,” began Mrs Elliot, “Ah was niver so grateful in my life when my Mr Elliot came home two months ago and said he had escaped a massacre.”

  Janet nodded gravely. “I heard about it.”

  “Now I don’t know why the Deputy Warden let them get away, but I’m grateful, believe me.”

  Janet said nothing at first, then said hesitantly, “Sir Robert Carey is a Courtier from London wi’ strange notions. He wants tae stop feud here on the Borders. Ye cannae do that without some show of goodwill, I think. He had your man and his surname in the hollow of his hand, coming in for their friends the Grahams. And by not crushing him, he said, if ye want peace, I do too.”

  Mrs Elliot nodded. “That’s what Colin thought. What did yer man think tae it?”

  Janet paused a long time before she answered. Should she lie? If she told the truth, what should she say about herself? Unwillingly she found herself thinking of what Mrs Hogg, the midwife, had said and the war it had started in her chest.

  “I’ll tell ye straight,” she said at last, “he’s very angry. He still wants tae finish the feud the old way.”

  It was no secret, after all. Alone of all the men there at Dick of Dryhope’s tower, Henry Dodd had wanted slaughter and death.

  “Could ye convince him otherwise?”

  Janet laughed. “It wad be a waste of time tae try,” she said. “It’s a new way of thinking and Henry’s old-fashioned. He still loves bows when everyone else is mad for guns and pistols.”

  Mrs Elliot nodded slowly again. “Wee Colin has a plan,” she said. “He thinks I dinna ken what it is but I’ve known him long enough and I got his brother to tell me.” Janet raised her sandy brows. “He doesnae want ransome for ye. He ainly brought ye to this tower because it’s gaunae snow and when it has, he’ll take ye on to Edinburgh.” Janet did her best not to look disbelieving. “He’s already turned down an offer of ain hundert pounds fra yer father and another of a hundred and fifty pounds fra Kinmont Willie.”

  “My God,” cackled Widow Ridley, “that’s a lot o’ money for one thrawn ginger cow.”

  Janet found herself blushing. It was a lot of money and her father and uncle had made the offers quickly. That was a high compliment.

  “So what’s his plan?” asked Widow Ridley, leaning forward.

  “He’ll help ye both get to Edinburgh and you will carry a challenge to single combat to your husband. Just Wee Colin Elliot and Sergeant Dodd, alone, to try the matter on their ain bodies.”

  “Och,” said Janet and sat back, feeling sick.

  “Ay,” chirped Widow Ridley, “I see his thinking. It’s clever and brave. As long as Sergeant Dodd’s alive, the old feud’s alive, so with him dead, it will die. And if Sergeant Dodd kills Wee Colin, he may accept that as an end. He’ll be at the horn in England in any case.”

  “Brave?” asked Mrs Elliot.

  Widow Ridley was enjoying herself. “Och, Wee Colin may be a bonny fighter but Henry Dodd has got something special, he’s a natural killer like Geordie Burn or Cessford, but halfway sane. Wee Colin’s got no chance. Mah money’s on the Sergeant.”

  In the distance, Janet thought that the book on that fight would probably be large.

  Mrs Elliot frowned. “I think he could win, but I don’t like it, I admit. They could both die of their wounds.”

  Janet thought but didn’t say, that it didn’t matter about wounds, Dodd would win. Maybe he would die later, but not before he had killed Elliot. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears which infuriated her. She had always known she was likely to be a widow, but she had always assumed she would have children. Now she knew she wouldn’t, or not from Henry; it made her heart sick to think of him dying.

  But if he fought and won the duel, perhaps that would ease the anger in him against the Elliots. Perhaps.

  “Do you want me to carry the challenge?”

  “Ay, that’s whit I said. If ye say ye won’t, Wee Colin will just use a messenger.”

  “Ah’ll do it,” piped up Widow Ridley with unseemly enthusiasm.

  “Ay,” Janet thought. “If I carry it, and Mr Elliot has helped me tae Edinburgh, Sergeant Dodd will still say yes.”

  Mrs Elliot sighed. “I ken that. Ay well, I’ve given ye warning.” She laughed a little. “My man’s pleased as punch wi’ his idea, says it’ll finish the feud whatever happens. Can I ask ye to see to that, Mrs Dodd? When they fight, if my Colin is killed, will ye hold yer man to the deal?”

  Janet reached forward and caught Mrs Elliot’s cold right hand with hers.

  “There’s ma hand, there’s ma heart,” she said. “I will, I swear it.”

  Mrs Elliot smiled. “Ye never know with a fight,” she said. “But thank you. Now, I must get back tae my kitchen, see ye, I’ve a goose to bake.”

  Wee Colin Elliot spoke to her later as the skies dumped their snow in fat flakes that were soon falling so thick you couldn’t see a hand in front of your face. He was standing in front of the fire in his Sunday doublet, not his workaday jack, the white linen of his falling band making a bold sight against his weathered face. He was a nice-looking man too, blue eyes, black hair, for all he was so short, about the same height as Janet herself.

  She had to remind herself that it was Christmas, which she had all but forgotten with all the botheration. Here in the little lesser tower, they were a long way from any kirk and there was no feasting of the surname, although dinner had been good with a roast goose and breadsauce and some more of those Brussels sprouts, along with the cabbage and bashed neeps and fried sippets and a good smoked and boiled ham. The families round about had come in to receive the hospitality of the headman. They had all gone home early, with nervous looks at the sky.

  “D’ye think he’ll take my challenge?”

  “Ay, o’course. Even though he’s not the Dodd headman.”

  “I know Jamie Dodd, we’ve allied on a couple of raids and he’s a sound man.”

  Jamie Dodd was about six or seven years younger than Henry, and his youngest brother, but they hadn’t met for years. He was young to be headman of a riding surname but that was accounted for by the feud and
the way it had taken so many of the fighting men.

  “What does Jamie think to yer plan, Mr Elliot?” she asked.

  “Ay,” said Wee Colin, “he’s no’ agin it. He thinks I should use a champion.”

  “Then Henry will not come.”

  “I ken that. Besides, Mrs Dodd, that’s not how I do things.”

  “A pity.”

  Wee Colin smiled. “Ye’re so sure your man will win?”

  “Ay,” she said, and shut her mouth with a snap.

  “Ye’re saying I’ve no chance?”

  “Ay, ye’ve a chance. It’s a fight.”

  “I wonder what my odds will be in the book?”

  Janet didn’t answer this for a while. “Mr Elliot, ye’re set on this?”

  He looked down at his brown square hands. “Ay.”

  She sighed. “I’ll take your message and we’ll send a message back to ye. I think we may have to wait a bit, though,” she added and went to peer out of the upper door, with the ladder below it to the ground. Snow was falling silently on snow that was already settling, a siege of feathers.

  ***

  The morning of St Stephen’s Day brought them a new world in Edinburgh, everything made new and beautiful, all the dungheaps turned into respectable hills, all the roofs and walls and fences draped in white blankets, the young dogs running around barking, the cats touching the snow with disapproving paws and shuddering back to the fires.

  Children were soon playing in the snow, throwing snowballs and building snowmen, while the dominies and ministers hurried about telling them it was idolatry and the work of the Devil and to take them down at once. By evening it was snowing again on half-swept streets and soon the footprints were blurred again.

  King James went hunting the day after and Carey and Dodd went along with the mob of nobles and attendants. It was the most perfect hunt Carey had ever seen, bright and the snow dazzling in the forest where it hadn’t been trampled, trees black against it and a long run after a most splendid hart of fourteen points that the dogs finally pulled down on the Leith links as the sunset echoed his blood across the sky.