Dacre's War

by Rosemary Goring

  Little, however, was said within his hearing. He had been two months at the keep, and nobody liked his presence. Maintaining their distance as if he were a rotting fish, their lack of trust was plain. Even Hob, who had no bad word for anyone, would do no more than nod when the sailor passed. The place beside him at dinner sat empty, the clan preferring to stand as they spooned their broth than brush elbows with him. Thus, that afternoon, when Tom saw him loitering at the edge of the hall, his rope of hair lying like a caul around his neck, he sent him outdoors, to do a shift on the walls.

  It made no difference to Barton. Untroubled – he had suffered far worse in his time – he kept his thoughts to himself, and made sure he earned his keep in the fields and on sentry patrol. Unheated and unfriendly as it was, Crozier’s Keep was better than gaol and the prospect of the gallows. At night he slept with a clear conscience and a full stomach, and dreamed of better times ahead.

  For a man such as Barton, looking beyond tomorrow was a new sensation. As long as he could remember he had lived for the day, not thinking about what the morning would bring. The conditions of his release from Edinburgh’s gaol had been simple, yet he chafed at the obligation that now lay upon him. The price for his escape from the noose was too high, the offer of money miserly, and the job itself tedious for one who enjoyed the thrill of the chase on the high seas, as well as its spoils. His plan – perhaps the first of his life – was to follow orders for a few weeks, then disappear from sight. Nobody, not even the all-powerful Lord Dacre himself, would be able to find him once he’d set sail for France, or Ireland, or Spain, or wherever a ship would take him.

  Knowing his present situation would not last for long, he remained vigilant. A few days after the regent’s visit, when his night watch came to an end, he did not make for his bed, but for the stables instead. Tiptoeing in, he chose a young, sturdy horse, fit for a long ride. Binding its hoofs in sacking, he led it into the yard, a fistful of oats and a drink at the trough keeping it quiet. In the loft above the stalls, Hob slept on, undisturbed.

  The keep was not awake, the kitchen fires so newly lit their smoke had not yet reached the sky. Black as an unswept chimney, the morning dark clung to him. Waiting for the new watch to pass beyond the gate tower, he hurried under the arch, and out into the woods. Beyond the walls the valley lay cold and quiet. Drawing his hood low, he climbed into the saddle, and set off down the track.

  Afternoon was fading when Harbottle came into sight, the lamps on its ramparts glimmering gold. Kicking his horse into a canter, Barton rode off the hills, and met the gatekeepers with a flurry of earth and an imperious shout.

  It was Blackbird who led him into the castle. Walking ahead of the sailor, whose weapons had been left at the gate, he cast no word or smile on him. Distaste curled his lip, and he put a reassuring hand to the knife in his belt, fingering its heavy hilt. At the door of the hall, he showed the visitor in with a bow, closing the doors but standing by them, in case his lordship called.

  Seated before the fire, Dacre received Barton alone. The sailor bent his head in greeting, but there was nothing of the serf about his stance. He had the stare of a rogue, a man who recognises no authority, nor bounds. A frown deepened the crease between the baron’s eyes. He had dealt with more criminals than a high court judge, and he knew all the shapes they came in. Barton, he guessed, was one of the worst: sly, cruel, and clever. He suppressed a shudder. In his time he had employed many such men. One more could do no harm.

  He waved Barton to the settle by the hearth. ‘I wouldnae say no to a mouthful of ale,’ the sailor said as he spread his legs towards the fire. ‘Nor a bite to warm my stomach.’

  Gracelessly, the baron poured him a mug. ‘Ye can eat all you like when we have talked,’ he said, as the sailor gulped down the draught, ‘but first I need to know what news you bring me.’

  Barton stifled a belch, and held the mug out for more. When that was drained, he slapped the tankard on the floor, and looked the baron in the eye. ‘Crozier’s your enemy, that’s for sure.’

  ‘So much I already knew,’ said the baron, standing before him, a tree of a man to this stunted shrub, as if to remind him of the gulf between their stations.

  ‘Ye have many, I am sure,’ the sailor agreed. ‘All powerful men do. But what I saw this week could mean trouble. On his own, I doubt Crozier could do you much harm, but he had a visitor on Thursday who could hurt ye sair.’

  The baron’s silence would have unnerved a less confident man, but Barton took his time before continuing, picking a burr from his sleeve, and looking into the flames as if for a reminder of what he had come to tell.

  He nodded, though Dacre had not spoken. ‘It was the regent, the Duke of Albany. And a right peacock he is too, painted and powdered and dressed like a lass, with lace at his neck and his cuffs.’ He snickered. ‘I tell ye, it takes some guts to traipse around the borders rigged out like that.’

  A click of exasperation from the baron made him look up, and he continued. ‘That’s no important, of course. But he stayed half a day, in private parlay with Crozier. The only part of the discussion I heard was that Albany wanted him to raise his men against you.’

  ‘What did Crozier say to that?’

  ‘Well, he refused outright.’ Barton sounded disappointed. ‘Said his family would have no dealings with the crown. After that, everyone was sent out of the hall. But when the Regent left, they spoke amicably to each other. I’d say they had reached terms.’

  The baron turned to stare into the fire, fisting a hand in his palm. ‘So they have made some agreement.’

  ‘That’s my understanding. I don’t know what it is, but whatever the pact, it’s intended to bring your ruin.’

  Dacre placed his hands on the chimneybreast and stared into the flames, fine dust drizzling from under his grip as he sandpapered the stone. The air around the sailor grew cool without the fire’s blaze, until at last the baron turned. ‘Albany is a weak man, leading a country more puny still.’ He laughed. ‘He was on the brink of taking Carlisle, and I talked him out of it. There we were, my men lined up behind me, facing his army, so nervy their horses twitched as if they were covered in flies. Most likely I need not have bothered. His men would no doubt have fled before they reached the city walls. But I enjoyed the showdown. It was like a scene from my old jousting days. It amused me.’

  Barton eyed him, unsure of this new mood. ‘It didnae seem to me that there was anything droll about the regent’s plans. It’s yer head he wants, stuck on a spike.’

  Dacre’s face was as cold as he found Barton’s. ‘I am sure he does. But I find it strange that he has joined forces with Crozier. One is a fleabitten commoner, the other one step from the throne.’

  He kneaded his reddened palms. ‘The border chief is playing deep. He’ll be out of his depth with the old king’s cousin. I wonder if either side knows what he’s doing.’ He was talking more to himself than to Barton. ‘But is there anything to fear from Crozier? Was he behind the Jedburgh stampede, or is he an opportunist, latching onto a better man’s campaign?’ He shook his head. ‘Whatever the truth of it, I doubt he, or Albany, will do me much damage. Nobody has yet.’

  He raised his head, and stared at an arrow-slit window, from which day had fled. His voice was flat, its bombast gone. ‘But I am now warned, and it would be foolish to ignore what you have told me. None of my other spies has brought me anything from the Fenwicks or the Ridleys, though their reports arrive almost daily. For all their news – and yours – I still do not know who drove those horses over the cliffs.’ He sighed, and spoke with obvious reluctance. ‘Ye have done well to bring me this, and I thank ye.’ He dug a hand into his jerkin, pulled out a small purse and dropped it in the sailor’s lap. ‘As agreed at the outset, you’ll be paid well for all your reports. For now, it is best ye remain at the keep. If there are any serious developments, I need to be told.’

  Ignoring the unspoken injunction to be gone, Barton sat where he was. Dacre stared at him.
When it was plain the informant had more to say, he took a step closer. ‘This fee is not enough?’

  Barton had not touched the purse, which lay where it had fallen on his stained hose. ‘First, the food ye promised me, sir. I’ve eaten nothing since midnight past.’

  ‘Ye’ll be well fed from our kitchen, I assure you. And you can sleep in the barracks, where it’s warm.’ The baron could not hide his irritation. ‘But there’s something more?’

  Barton nodded. ‘However much giltsilver is packed into this thimble it’s no enough, when you consider the dangers I face every day.’

  ‘Ye were in worse danger in the castle gaol, my man. Whatever price ye put on your life, you’d still be in my debt, even if this purse was empty.’

  Barton’s tongue ran over his lips. ‘Our arrangement, as I recall the queen making clear at the outset, was for you to offer some reasonable recompense for my efforts. That’s all I’m asking. And this poxy wee bag does not seem reasonable to me.’

  ‘Ye think they suspect you?’ the baron asked, as if he had not spoken.

  ‘They dinnae trust me, and do not hide the fact. Me being gone overnight is sure to deepen their suspicions.’

  ‘A man like you is used to lying, are ye not?’

  ‘Aye, but there’s a hundred of them to one of me. It’s no what ye’d call a comfortable situation.’

  ‘More comfortable, surely, than awaiting the hangman’s knot. A degrading end that would have been, for one such as you.’

  The baron spoke with disdain, but Barton did not flinch. ‘I’d have found a way out of the gaol long afore that day. The dowager queen set me free as if I was a slater she’d found in her slipper. Nae doubt she thought I should be eternally grateful she had saved me from the dungeons, and from death. But like the louse I am, I’d have found a crack to squeeze through and make my escape without anyone’s help, dinnae ye fear.’

  Dacre looked at the set of his mouth, the strength in his wrists, the unlit chill of his eyes, and found he did not doubt it.

  He turned and called for Blackbird. The butler entered, and the pair conferred. Blackbird’s soft boots hurried out, and in the time it took him to fill another purse no word was spoken in the hall. Untroubled, Barton sat with his hands on his knees, staring at the rafters.

  A figure passed the open doors. ‘Father?’ said Joan, seeing him standing as if frozen in place. She came towards him and he moved to stand between her and his visitor, but Joan stepped aside and saw the sailor, a faint smile on his face as he traced the stains of soot and damp on Harbottle’s eaves.

  ‘Be gone, girl, this instant!’ hissed the baron, a hand in the small of her back. Distracted, Barton shifted on the settle and caught sight of Joan, her mud-spattered skirts, and the sulky frown beneath her crooked wimple.

  ‘Of course, Father,’ she said, bobbing her knee, but Barton was not fooled. This was a girl who did as she wished. Before the baron turned to catch him staring at his daughter, the sailor had fixed his gaze on high once more.

  Part Two

  1524

  If Not To Heaven . . .

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  February 1524

  Winter settled on the borderlands, and the earth grew tight as a drum. At the foot of the frosted hills every path was slick with ice. Rivers froze, caught in twisted plumes as waters leapt over a fall or swirled in a pool, trapped in gargoyle form as if carved by a demented mason. Trees stood sentinel, stiffened with hoar, the slightest wind setting them tinkling as their glaze splintered and fell. A haze shimmered around their tops as living wood breathed beneath its cold skin, warmer air creating a cowl of mist that did not lift from advent to a month after Christmas. Even then, it gave way only when the skies shook out their snows, dragging grey columns that blotted the light and smothered the land.

  Adam Crozier roamed the borders in this weather as if it were June. A few days after the regent’s visit he, Tom and Benoit had begun their forays in search of allies. With Albany’s letter in his hand, the borderer approached the most noble families in the region, a tribe whose voices were as hard and expressions as harsh as the season. By comparison the regent, for all his flounces and flourishes, was not half as grand.

  Unflinching in the face of a knife or a sword, Crozier found it harder to breach the fortresses and prejudices of these nobles than to launch into armed combat. He was not the first to discover a habitually still tongue miraculously loosened by nerves, and to hear a voice he barely recognised run away with itself and present a fool to the unloving world.

  It was to Sir John Wetherington of Wetherington that he introduced his less austere self, and learned his lesson. The knight, who had the king’s ear and could muster a hundred men at six hours’ notice, cast a look soaked in contempt at his visitors. Steam rose from the riders’ frosted cloaks as they stood before the knight’s hearth, creating a fug of horse sweat and leather. The noble kept his guards at his side, hands upon their swords, as Crozier explained his purpose, assuring him of the regent’s support for his cause. The guffaw Wetherington unleashed at this message made Crozier’s face glow with rage. Yet, sensing he was about to be ejected from the tower house by the guards, rather than teach the man manners at the point of a blade he found himself babbling. He did not need to look over his shoulder to feel Tom and Benoit’s surprise as he began to describe the day Albany had visited. The weather, the regent’s retinue and the food they had eaten were all laid before the knight, whose eyes widened to hear a border chief describe plain fare and humble beer as if it might sway his opinion.

  Perhaps it was the oddity that made the knight relax. That, or Crozier’s palpable discomfort. No one with treachery on their minds would dare, surely, enter his gates to pour out a cook’s tales. Crozier, finally catching hold of his tongue, stood sweating but quiet. He squirmed at the amusement in the noble’s eyes as he bade the borderers sit, and set his guards at ease. Offering ale – a Northumbrian amber whose velvet taste spoke as eloquently of the man’s wealth as a missal’s worth of words – Wetherington too drank, indicating that now they were able to do business.

  That encounter proved fruitful, as well as instructive. When next Crozier approached a noble, he had control of himself. Schooled by his wife in silence in the past week, he was reminded that he could command respect with no more than a look. It was just as well. Richard Foulberry of Foulberry, lord of the lands on the English side of the Solway, was not blessed with patience. Nor was his wife, whose cool gaze would, only a week before, have unnerved the borderer, unused to mingling with the higher estates and suffering their aquiline stares.

  Foulberry proved as useful as the regent had promised. Cutting across the borderer’s opening speech, he flicked his fingers for the letter Crozier held. Breaking the seal, he read it in a heartbeat and handed it to his wife, who looked from the regent’s words to the border chief, fresh interest in her dark eyes.

  That day, Crozier allowed himself at last to believe he might bring down his enemy. Over a meal of roasted meats and honeyed fruits, whose rich sauces and spiced flavours were a reminder of Lady Foulberry’s French homeland, he, his men and the Foulberrys discussed the liaisons they might make between their houses, and those of the most trusted and powerful of Henry ViiI’s northern subjects.

  ‘Give me the month,’ said Foulberry at the end of dinner, removing the eyeglasses that pinched his nose as he read the list they had composed. ‘In that time I will enquire of my closest friend, Marcus Selby of Setonlands near Durham, who has men inside Dacre’s camp.’

  Lady Foulberry put a hand on her husband’s ermine cuff. He covered it with his own, and looked at Crozier. ‘Isabella wishes you to understand that you and your men are welcome as our guests whenever you please.’ He glanced at her ladyship, who was nodding.

  ‘In this treacherous weather, your work is hard enough,’ she said, ‘without spending a night on the road. There is nowhere in these parts I would allow my dogs to sleep, let alone a man such as you.’ She pause
d, as if contemplating just what sort of man he was, her eyes travelling over his countryman’s garb, his unadorned and roughened hands. ‘Should anyone disturb us while you are here,’ she continued, in a voice that held barely a note of a foreigner’s accent, ‘we will say you are my farmer cousin from Normandy. That way you need not speak.’

  She smiled and hitched her furs around her neck, though a snowdrift of breast remained exposed.

  That first visit had been in December, shortly before Christmas. The men had a punishing ride back to Teviotdale, their horses tiring after a few miles on tracks so hard their shoes rang out like chimes. Jolted with every step, the riders were not much less weary. But while they reached the keep with every bone aching, they were in good spirits. Alerted to their return by the wolf, who was barking fit to waken his ancestors, Louise ran out into the courtyard and caught her husband’s hands as he dismounted. He pulled her to him, throwing the reins into Hob’s care. ‘We make progress,’ he whispered into her hair, and kissed her swiftly, before any would see.

  In the following days, Louise watched Crozier’s lightened mood, pleasure mingled with concern. His evident relief revealed all too plainly that until the regent’s visit he had been troubled, and afraid. Now he slept through the night without muttering or leaving their bed to stand by the unshuttered window, staring into the dark until he was as cold as the flagstones beneath his bare feet.