Dacre's War

by Rosemary Goring

  ‘I was so afraid,’ Louise said quietly, as if to match the hush of the forest that pressed at their windows. ‘After what happened at Dryburgh and Melrose and Kelso, it seemed you could not get away unscathed yet again. I had the most terrible dreams.’

  ‘But I am here, and all is well,’ Crozier replied, and it was fatigue that made his voice little more than a sigh. They sank, clothed, onto the bed. With an arm around Louise, Crozier watched firelight play on the rafters, but the homely sight made him frown.

  ‘The flames devoured Jedburgh,’ he said, ‘like it was kindling.’ He shook his head, but the images would not fade. ‘Dacre’s men came for it, just as they did Kelso and all the others. They were well prepared, and offered no mercy. No mercy at all.’

  Louise sat up. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Best you don’t hear all of it. You can guess what it was like. There were archers and swordsmen in the streets, fires lit under every thatch and shack. Children cut down, and old folk speared. Even dogs were thrown onto the flames.’ He passed a hand over his eyes. ‘We fought them off hard, but in the end they were stronger.’

  ‘What then?’ asked Louise, catching the note of a story half finished.

  ‘I killed Dacre’s horses.’ Crozier’s face was harsh. ‘We crept up on Dacre’s army, and herded their horses over the cliffs. It was cruel, but it had to be done. Dacre is destroying our lands, butchering our people, and he cannot go unpunished. If nothing else, the brute now knows he cannot attack the border and get away with it. He’s not just lost a thousand horses, but he has been made to look a fool.’

  ‘Not just cruel, but also dangerous,’ Louise replied, thinking of the forces he had unleashed that might soon be heading their way. Too vividly she remembered what had happened when the baron had sent his men to raze the keep and kill them all, shortly after Flodden. That time, Dacre had been too cocksure to take on the task himself. The courage of Crozier and Tom in fighting off the warden’s troops had become legend in these parts. The borderer had nearly died in the attempt, and Louise still woke shuddering from nightmares replaying the days when it had seemed he would not live.

  ‘Will he know it was you who did it?’ she asked, unable to hide her terror.

  Crozier gave a shaky laugh. ‘If he thought so, it would be nothing but a guess. It could have been any of us, not just from this march but further afield too. Some who joined us came from as far off as the Firth of Forth and the Clyde. They’d heard what had happened at Kelso, and wanted to drive Dacre back.’

  Louise lay with her head on his shoulder. By the hearth, the wolf slept at last. Beyond the shutters an early blackbird called, mistaking the torchlit courtyard and its bustling men for daybreak.

  ‘You could be right,’ Crozier conceded. ‘Maybe I have provoked him.’ Unconsciously he touched his side where the scar from that old fight ran round his belly, a gunpowder fuse that still burned. ‘But I will be ready for him.’ He gripped her arm, as if to be sure she was listening. ‘Lou, the time has come to set things straight between him and me.’

  She nodded, understanding, as she always had, the bleak code of the borders. Death was not the worst thing that could happen. Preserving dignity and honour mattered far more. After his encounter with Ethan Elliot the past had caught up with them, as she had always known it would. Now they would have to face it.

  In the grainy firelight her husband looked weary. Since war with England had resumed, the keep’s men and their allies had been riding far across the border, inflicting as much damage on English villages, crops and cattle as had been done to theirs. But there had been an edge to Crozier’s mood these past few months, a hunger for action that these excursions did not explain. At last she understood.

  She sighed, and he put his hand over hers. ‘I couldn’t bear it any longer,’ he said, as if it were a confession. ‘Dacre’s been acting these past twenty years like he was the Lord God Almighty and we nothing more than ants beneath his feet. Thinking how to destroy him keeps me awake at night. I owe it not just to my father, Lou, but to us – you, me, and the clan.’ He sighed. ‘And it was the last promise I made to Ma. She died easier at the thought.’

  Few things had made Mother Crozier joyful in her final years, but the prospect of avenging her husband’s murder would have sent her into the next life with her lips curled in a smile. Louise nodded, acknowledging the power of that deathbed vow. The old woman had been thrawn, but she missed her barbed wit and flinty charity more than she mourned her own mother, who had died the same year.

  ‘Then let me help,’ she said. ‘Since the day you met Ethan Elliot, I have been thinking. There might be another way to take revenge, better than pitting your men against the baron.’ She pulled the bearskin over them. ‘Rest for a while, and in the morning we will be able think more clearly.’ There was no answer. Her husband’s breath rose and fell, and he was already asleep. Louise watched daylight arrive, and birdsong with it, until she too eventually slept.

  That morning, Crozier’s Keep rose from a forest of trees fired red and gold in the rising sun. Lapped by leaves, it stood at the head of a high valley, where all comers could be seen on the treeless hills below. Home to Crozier and Louise, her brother, his wife and their brood, Crozier’s grandfather, several cousins and a pack of servants whose tongues were never still, it was more fortress than house. Built for protection not comfort, it was a warren of rooms and passageways whose icy chill turned feet and fingers numb.

  Since Crozier’s return, long before dawn, the courtyard had been alive, men ordering their gear, stable boys forking fresh hay into each stall. From the stable door, Hob watched Louise and Crozier disappear into the trees, the mistress’s quick steps barely keeping pace with her husband’s long stride. Their heads were bowed, and they were talking. The young groom frowned. He could see trouble in their gait. Picking up a soft brush, he turned to Crozier’s mare, sweeping her flanks until she gleamed like copper. That at least would please the master when he returned.

  Seated on a throne of rock close to the waterfall, the couple watched the river’s headlong rush, and were calmed. For a moment, the threat that hung over them was forgotten, the ageless beauty of this wild land dampening their fears. When at last they began to talk, their words were almost lost beneath the water’s roar, so fierce a torrent its mist thickened the air.

  As the morning brightened, Louise laid out her ideas. Crozier listened, and slowly his expression changed. He sat straighter, and began to nod. He glanced sidelong at his wife. Wisps of hair had escaped their golden net and were shivering in the breeze, but there was a steel and resolve in her cat-like face that startled him. When it was clear she was as keen to bring about Dacre’s downfall as he, a dark smile lit his face.

  He had never doubted her loyalty to the clan, even in the first days of their marriage, when she was new to the borderlands as well as to him. At first, she had been timid when suggesting ways the keep and its affairs could be better run, its men put to the best use. She feared offending her husband, but instead she made him shake his head in wonder that she could solve problems he had not even noticed. ‘She’s got an auld head on her,’ his mother said, warming to her son’s wife, to the surprise of all.

  From their first months together, Crozier and Louise worked in harness, effortlessly in step. Crozier took few decisions without her approval, and while she rarely disagreed with his ideas, he often sought her advice. Thus, this morning, as she told him her plan to outwit Dacre, he did not dismiss it, as most men would, as being not only dangerous but impossible. Her confidence that this might work gave him a glimmer of faith. As in all belief, doubt played as large a part as certainty, but like all belief, rational or not, one could not live without it.

  ‘You are lord of this land, and leader of all Teviotdale,’ she said, staring across the river to the birches that clung to the lip of the ravine. ‘You have spent years earning that position, yet each month you ride out like a common reiver to maintain your place, and this land.
What does a man like Dacre do? He fights, of course, because he is at heart a thug. But he owes his position not to his sword but to his wits. His success lies with his friends and allies, with those whose support he can get by bribing, buying, or bullying. The man has a honeyed tongue and a weaselly brain, and a conscience that’s gagged and bound. All this has brought him more friends and riches than anyone else in the north. Not even the King of England can match the allegiance he commands in these parts.’

  Crozier frowned, unsure where this was leading.

  ‘It seems to me,’ she continued, ‘that you should not place all your assurance in your sword, but try to use your influence instead. If you could gain the confidence of those who can do Dacre far more harm by dropping a word into the king’s ear than you could with all your men hammering at his door, then the task would be easier.’

  Crozier gave a laugh. ‘And how do I do that, reiver that I am?’

  Louise plucked a long grass, and began to strip it of seeds. ‘You are a man of good breeding, and education. Though you call yourself a farmer, you are one of the most powerful and respected men this side of the border.’ She put a hand on his sleeve. ‘Dacre has the advantage, with his wealth, and the troops he can summon, and his voice at court, but he has grown complacent and lax. Fat too, I believe. You told me yourself that the gentlemen of the marches hate him, that the Percys loathe his being warden of the east, with authority to make them do his bidding. The Ridleys, the Redpaths, and the Carrs all have grievances, as do many others. And even his friends know he is corrupt.’

  She stripped another grass, fingers worrying while her mind raced. ‘The men in Dacre’s pay are thieves and killers, who raid and rape and burn, right across the border. Yet when they have their day in court, they always walk out free men. When did you last hear of an Armstrong on a gibbet? Or in a gaol for more than a week? The fines imposed on them, when they do reach the dock, are as nothing to the money they have stored up for themselves, in league with Dacre. And it’s not just the Armstrongs. Half of the western marches, on both sides of the border, are in his purse.’

  Crozier stared at the waterfall. ‘If the Scottish court knew the truth of it,’ he said, ‘they would send their army to crush them all, Scots and English alike. They have no idea of what goes on out here. Nor, most likely, does King Henry.’

  Louise nodded. ‘You’d think these parts were invisible. Perhaps for that reason, Dacre has been allowed too free a hand. But we can make use of that fact. He’s going too far. He’s taking liberties, risks, acting as if he’s above the law. And we are not alone in having reason to hate him, my love. Many people want Dacre gone. I’ve heard even the Bishop of Durham is growing suspicious, though knowing how well the baron stands with the king, he says nothing.’

  Hesitating, she swept seeds from her skirts. ‘What you need to do is risky. But,’ she continued, as if to reassure herself, ‘not anywhere near as dangerous as tackling him in the open and on your own.’

  ‘Out with it,’ Crozier said. ‘Tell me what you are thinking.’

  Louise paused. Her concern was clear as she held his gaze, before dropping her own. ‘It might be too dangerous. And yet the more I have thought on it, the more I have come to believe that audacity is what’s required. You need to surprise him. And to do that, you must not act alone. You need to be part of an alliance, of men he would never suspect of trying to do him harm. Gain the ear and the trust of his enemies and the job will be half done. They’re too scared to confront him alone. Who would have the courage to speak to the king or his counsellors without knowing they have allies to back them up? A single plaintiff risks not only Henry’s rough justice, but Dacre’s immediate revenge.’

  She gazed across the forest to the mid-morning sky, where a lazy buzzard circled. ‘Out here, he can kill whoever he likes. Nobody would ever find the body, let alone the culprit. But if you can bring his naysayers together, if you can make them realise that there is strength and safety in numbers, then you have a chance. The king will be obliged to take heed of what men such as those tell him, when they are all agreed. If he were to ignore them, he knows the north could revolt.’

  ‘So I act as the messenger boy,’ Crozier said.

  ‘No. Negotiator and nemesis.’ Her reply was so grim, he felt a chill creep up his spine. She knew as well as he that what she was proposing might prove fatal.

  ‘There’s only one flaw,’ he said slowly. ‘Dacre’s enemies are also mine.’

  ‘You might think that,’ she answered, taking his arm, ‘but you would be wrong.’

  That evening the hall of Crozier’s Keep lay shadowed in smoky light. Crooked candles glowed on the long deal table, the fire leapt high in its hearth, and tallow lamps flickered from their niches in the walls. Cast in pewter gloom, the group around the table looked like the Last Supper redrawn for a cold country: disciples wrapped in badger skins and plaid, the table empty but for a quantity of drink even Christ at Cana could not have conjured.

  Crozier sat at the top, kestrel on his wrist, and men on either side. Louise was placed at the foot, though her husband looked to her so often she might have been the head of the clan and he merely her consort. Feeding the hawk a scrap and sending it back to its perch on the wall, Crozier called everyone to attention. Jugs and tumblers were put down, conversations cut off, some of the men glancing at Louise, hoping her face would hold a clue of what was to come.

  ‘Gentlemen, cousins, brothers.’ The borderer rapped the table with his dagger’s hilt, waiting for the hall to quieten. When all were listening he outlined the plot, while the clan nodded gravely as their interest mounted.

  ‘We need to know which knights on the English border we can persuade to our cause,’ he told them. ‘Even those who want Dacre dead will be suspicious of a man like me: neither noble nor at the Scottish court, and famous for raiding their countrymen. For those reasons alone, many will be beyond our reach. I’d not even get over the door. Some, most likely, would run straight to the baron, loathe him though they do, to win favour for flushing his enemy, and have us dead within the week.’

  ‘It is delicate,’ said Old Crozier, from his seat at his grandson’s side. Stooped, dry-boned, his scalp liver-spotted beneath a fog of white hair, he retained most of his wits, though he had already been head of the clan when he met the messenger bringing news of James III’s accession, more than sixty years before.

  ‘That is one word,’ Adam replied. ‘Another would be hazardous. In taking this road, I may bring Dacre down upon us faster than we have bargained for. I ask your assent before I make a move.’

  Fists thumped the table. ‘Let me get my hauns on the bastard,’ said Wat the Wanderer, wetting his beard with a long swig of ale, as if this draught was a promise, sealed with a kiss.

  ‘Ye’ll be lucky tae get that close,’ said Benoit Brenier, Louise’s brother, who had learned the language as a young boy new from France, and was now more Scottish than any in the dale. ‘He’d send his lackeys out first to cut down the common ranks, before gracing us wi’ his presence. He’ll no waste himsel on small beer. He’ll haud ontae his self respect and only face the top man, once the coast is clear of the likes of us.’

  ‘Cumberland scum,’ growled murdo Montgomery, Crozier’s cousin, setting off a muttering around the table.

  ‘Aye, well, scum these English lords may be,’ said Crozier, hushing the noise with a raised hand, as if about to bless the gathering, ‘but it’s them we need on our side if this plan is to work.’ The querulous murmur resumed, but he quashed it with a look.

  ‘You could start with the Lord Ogle,’ said a quiet voice. Tom Crozier stared around the table. Even in this subdued light the old knife slash on his cheek was plain, but his lively eye and good-humoured mouth softened the scar. Where Crozier was clipped of speech, Tom was wanton with words. A warmer man than his brother, he had a wild temper, though years of struggle had curbed it. There were many, indeed, unnerved by Adam’s cool demeanour and his unerring ear for l
ies, who preferred to deal with Tom. But as Louise knew well, Tom’s bonhomie could be his undoing, and theirs too, if unchecked.

  Now he had their attention, Tom raised his voice. ‘The Lord Ogle of Bothal is an honest man. True to the king, a fine fighter – he can muster a hundred horsemen – and loyal to the tacks on his boots. But he’s no tale-teller. If you had his word on oath condemning Dacre, that would count for something.’

  More names followed, from all round the table, knights and gentlemen and farmers who lived within a day or two’s ride of the border, and owed the king ten, twenty, two hundred men in times of war: Sir Roger Grey, Sir Edward Ellarcar, Thomas Hebborn, Rauf Ilderton . . .

  At the last name, Crozier snorted. ‘Ilderton is gone to the bad. Does not pay his debts, has enough mistresses to fill a nunnery, and will promise aught to all to pay for another night’s drink. His house is falling to pieces, his stables are almost empty, and his men lie around the village as debauched as their lord.’ His eyes glittered. ‘A more dangerous, useless ally one could not find on either side of the border.’

  His wife had cocked her head and was looking at him, curious as a hen at a flea. ‘Yes?’ said Crozier.

  She tucked her hands into her sleeves. ‘Surely so venal a lord might serve our own ends, without even being aware he was being useful?’

  ‘How, precisely?’ Tom asked, before Crozier could speak.

  ‘His drinking companions will no doubt hear a thing or two, if the right questions are asked, don’t you think?’ Louise smiled. ‘They’d need a good head for barley, of course.’

  Benoit began to smile too, the anticipation of dangerous pleasure spreading across his pockmarked face. ‘I’m the man for that,’ he said.

  A laugh ran round the hall. Benoit’s growing girth was a matter of pride. His wife Ella was so often with child, some whispered he was trying to compete. He ignored their jibes, and drank on. Only when his paunch threatened to come between him and his carpenter’s table would he cut down on his beer, he told Ella, who would shake her head, pat his belly, and walk off with an infant hitched onto her hip.