Dacre's War

by Rosemary Goring

  ‘I did. They were sent on from Paris, but I have been busy.’ Albany fingered the pomander, as if the Scots brought with them a smell he did not like.

  ‘In that case,’ Crozier continued, ‘you will understand our urgency. We need those letters you spoke of. They are our only hope now of bringing Baron Dacre to justice before he hunts down his enemies.’

  Albany turned his attention to the hearth, fluffing the lace at his wrist. ‘It all seems so far away now, all so unimportant,’ he murmured.

  Crozier took a step towards him. ‘You will not think that when you return to your country and find Dacre’s hand directing Holyrood’s business from behind the scenes, and turning the court against you.’

  The duke turned slowly. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You have not heard, then.’ He smiled, without warmth. ‘Dacre cannot harm me now. I am no longer regent. In my absence, your parliament has deposed me. I received notice of this only a few days ago. Quaintly worded it was. Very – shall we say Scotch? – in its coarse brutality.’

  ‘I did not know,’ said Crozier impatiently, ‘but it makes no difference. You promised me those letters, and I am here to get them.’

  The duke moved away from the fire, and took a seat on a deep oaken chest, which had once held a queen’s trousseau. ‘It is not as simple as that,’ he said. ‘I find myself in a position where those letters might one day be useful to me. You and I are no longer associates. We may have served each other’s purpose in the past, but that is now at an end. I will never see Scotland again and,’ he examined his fingernails, ‘I cannot say I am sorry.’

  He got no further. Crozier had him by the collar, dragging him onto his feet and slamming him against the wall, where he held him in a choking grip, a knife pointed at his throat.

  ‘Give me the letters.’ He spoke through his teeth. ‘If you do not do as you promised, or if you call the guards and have us murdered, it is not you our clan will destroy but your children, your mistresses, and your new young wife, whoever she will be. You will live to be an old man, knowing you allowed them to be butchered because you were too dishonourable to keep your side of a deal.’

  Sweat trickled down Albany’s temple, but his voice did not shake. ‘Let me go, and we can talk like civilised men. You’re nothing but a dirty thug, Crozier. I always knew that.’

  ‘As if I cared.’ Crozier’s hold tightened. ‘Remember, if you shout for help, you will be dead before it arrives, and the rest of your family will follow, one by one, in the months ahead.’

  Albany nodded, unable to speak, and the borderer let him go. The duke dropped onto the chest and ran his hand under his collar, his throat working hard to swallow. He cast a malevolent look at the Scots, as if wondering how he could outwit them, but when he had caught his breath he stood up.

  ‘You can have them. Maundering stuff; they turned my stomach. I’ll be glad to be rid of them. I will fetch them now, and bless the day you disappear out of my sight, and all thought of Scotland with you.’ Turning to the grate he spat on the logs, which sizzled as if with loathing. ‘Do not follow,’ he barked, as the Borderers started after him. ‘Despite what you think, I am a man of my word. You are safe. For now.’

  Neither spoke while they waited for Albany to return. The bustle of the kitchens preparing dinner reached them, as did the aroma of roasting meats. Benoit’s stomach growled, the only sound in the room. When finally the door opened, Crozier’s knife was in one hand, the hilt of his sword under the other.

  ‘Here they are,’ said Albany, tossing the package to him. ‘Now, be gone.’ He might have been dismissing a beggar.

  Unhurried, Crozier put away his knife and opened the package. He spread the letters on the chest, read quickly, and was satisfied. Tucking them into his belt, he turned to the duke.

  His eye ran over the puffed sleeves and earringed lobe, the opal nestling in his cap. No words were needed to convey his contempt. Already a bruise was darkening on the duke’s neck. It would serve as reminder of the borderer for many days to come. So too would the knowledge that a couple of brigands had bested him, as had their country. Sneer though he would for the rest of his life about the viper’s nest that was Scotland, Albany would never have the courage to return, and everyone in that room knew it.

  L’Auberge de Villenuit was blanketed in rain. A long, low wooden house, wreathed in yellowing vines, it sent smoke from a jumble of chimneys into the misted air, but still the place was cold. Crozier and Benoit took a room, had their horses stabled, and, rubbing their hands, made for the taproom, where food and drink were served. The place was quiet, few travellers out at this time of year, fewer still in the gathering storm.

  Crozier had sent a message to Foulberry’s skipper, who was awaiting them at the port. ‘He’ll be kicking his heels, wondering where we’ve been,’ he grumbled, as they tucked into a plate of mutton stew, swimming in succulent fat. ‘We’re already a week late.’

  Benoit spoke through his food. ‘Doubt he’ll care much. WI’ the wind rising like this, he’ll be relieved to be in harbour and no blown onto the Cornish rocks.’

  Crozier growled. ‘This storm’ll pass by tomorrow. We have to get back.’

  ‘Aye, I ken,’ Benoit replied, draining his tankard, and beckoning for more, ‘but it looks as if it’s settling in. Be patient, man. There’s nothing you can do about it if we have to wait another day or two.’

  Wind buffeted the inn, setting doors banging and shutters rattling. It howled down the taproom chimney like bloodhounds on the scent. Crozier lapsed into a brooding silence as the pair watched the haywire flames, waiting for word from Henryson. When it arrived, long after dark, it was as Benoit had feared. There would be no sailing tomorrow, or the day after that. The skipper would send word as soon as the storm had abated, but it might be several more days.

  With the aid of ale and a pair of dice, the borderers had begun the tedious task of passing the time when heels were heard in the hallway, and an imperious French voice called for help. There was a babble of obsequious conversation as orders were given and servants despatched, before a well-dressed young woman entered the taproom, pushing back her hood, and cast a swift glance round before disappearing again.

  The men played on, but were soon disturbed by the innkeeper, who approached them with a servile stoop. He had, he said, offered them the best room in the inn, not knowing the company he was about to receive. He now begged their indulgence, and asked if they would be prepared to take another, smaller room at the front of the house, so that a lady and her maid could sleep in comfort and peace. Their things would be moved to a nice warm chamber, overlooking the road.

  From the hallway came the scuff of servants carrying bags up the stairs, and the click of impatient boots on flagstones as the newly arrived guests awaited the innkeeper’s return. Benoit told the man to do as he pleased. Straightening to his normal height, the landlord was all smiles. ‘It is her ladyship,’ he explained. ‘She always demands the best room.’

  Moments later, the young woman returned, peeling off her gloves. Behind her came her mistress, a fur-tipped hood hiding her face. The maid helped her out of her cloak, and the woman stood looking round the dimly lit room until she found the borderers, whose backs were turned to the door.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ she said softly, walking towards them in her nailed boots. Startled, Benoit turned, and saw Isabella Foulberry. Her face was in shadow, but as she laid a hand on Crozier’s shoulder, and he looked up, his expression was plain to read.

  ‘I did not expect to find you in these parts,’ said Isabella. ‘I had thought you’d be long since home.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Crozier asked.

  ‘Visiting my family – their seat is only a day’s journey from the city. Henryson brought me, when he returned from your own passage. I had hoped to embark on the River Pearl tonight, but find I have to spend the night here – perhaps longer. Such a bore. But less so now I find such good company, here and, of course, for the passage home.’ Sh
e smiled, and pulled up a stool to sit beside them.

  Crozier looked at Benoit, and drained his tankard. He rolled the dice on their table. ‘You will be disappointed, I think, my lady. This is all we can do to pass the time,’ he said.

  ‘Really, do you think so?’ she replied, her hand again settling on his shoulder.

  Crozier removed the hand, and looked at her levelly. ‘If I have ever led you to expect or hope otherwise, my lady, I ask your forgiveness. It was uncivil of me to use you in that way. But now all pretence can be at an end.’ He turned back to the dice and glanced at Benoit. ‘Your cast, brother.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The men ought to have been back long before now, and Louise and Ella were anxious. Tom, however, was untroubled. ‘They must have met with some delay on the road to Paris,’ he said, whistling his way about his business as he always did. They nodded, but remained as worried as before.

  When another week had passed, Louise took Hob aside. ‘You and I are going to the Solway port, to find out what has happened,’ she told him. ‘Have the horses ready before light.’

  He would have protested, knowing the risks such a journey involved, but the thought of Crozier’s anger if he led his wife into possible danger was as nothing to the sight of her thin, drawn face. ‘Will do,’ he replied.

  The next morning they set out, telling none but Ella where they were going. The storms of the past month had eased, leaving only a scudding wind to keep them company, but the tracks were thick with mud and loosened stones, and uprooted trees marked the passage of the gales as clearly as flags.

  Now the war was almost at an end, crossing the border was less perilous. The greater danger was the miles they must ride through the Elliots’ and Armstrongs’ lands in Liddesdale, which lay between them and the firth. Skirting the dale on its westward edge, they rode fast, stopping only to rest the horses. But it was as if the place had been emptied, its people blown away. They met no one on those lonely roads, and when on their second day they slipped across the border, Louise threw back her hood and laughed. It was years since she had ridden this far, and though it was fear that propelled her, the thrill of the ride set her pulse racing, and she felt her anxiety lift.

  Reaching Rockcliffe, they rode a few miles farther to where a sandy track led to Foulberry’s private harbour. Coming off the clifftop, where the breeze snatched their breath, they reached the sheltered cove where the deep stone haven was built. A pair of fishermen were on the harbourside, caulking a boat. Beyond the walls, a choppy sea moved like an army of steel bonnets, flashing in the noonday sun. Shielding his eyes, Hob asked for Foulberry’s skipper, and was told he had not yet returned. The younger of the fishermen squinted at him. ‘How’s it your business, lad, where he is or isn’t?’

  ‘I’ll tell you, one day,’ Hob replied. ‘For now, is there somewhere we can stay, until the boat comes in?’

  A long look passed between them, and the older man shrugged. ‘My cousin runs a small place, no far from here, halfway up the hill. Not grand, but the rooms are cheap. You’d be welcome enough there, so long as it’s not for long. Scots are bad for business, he says.’

  The tavern was built end-on to the sea, which surged onto the shingle beach below its hillside berth, as if to eat the cliff away and watch the inn collapse. It would soon crumble without any such help, Louise thought. The place was grimy, cold and damp, and the landlord looked her over as if she were a pie, hot and tasty from the oven. Mean as it was, it had one thing in its favour: from its door, and their upstairs window, they could see the harbour mouth. And so they set up watch.

  The days passed as if time had stopped. Louise dared not think what she would do if the boat arrived without Crozier, or news of him. Playing chess with Hob at the taproom window, or prowling the cove on foot, she could not allow herself to contemplate what might have happened to keep him in France.

  As each day faded without the boat’s return, darkness brought a strange comfort. The lamp at the harbour entrance burned like a beacon, keeping her company as the night drew on with no sign of life but a passing gull’s cry, or the bark of the harbour dogs. A rowing boat’s lantern would raise her hopes, soon to fade as its size was revealed. But at last, one morning, as dawn drew back the dark, a light could be seen far out at sea, bright as the morning star. Hob was on watch, and he shook Louise awake. Soon they were at the harbourside, hearts hammering as the ship bore steadily towards the cove. Only lobstermen were awake at this hour. They grunted a greeting as they jumped into their boats and rowed off down the coast, to empty their creels while the creatures and their claws were still half asleep.

  Light had broken when at last the River Pearl slipped into harbour. Ropes were flung onto the stanchion, and a sailor jumped ashore as soon as the quayside was close to wrap them tight.

  Louise clutched Hob’s arm. They stood far back, under the cliffs, watching the plank being lowered. A sailor ran onto the quay, a crate across his shoulders. Then came another young fellow, stooped and coughing under a metal trunk that he carried like a lumberman’s sack. He staggered, unsteady on the quivering plank, and dropped his load on the stone quay before returning for another, smaller trunk, which he again deposited on the quay. That done, he went back once more, and this time reappeared holding the hand of a small figure in a dark cloak who tiptoed over the water.

  Louise put a hand over her eyes, to see more clearly. A cry escaped her as she recognised Benoit disembarking, followed by Crozier. ‘Thank God,’ she breathed, turning to see Hob’s reaction, but he kept his eyes on the boat.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, and Louise watched in dismay as a lady in red boots and a fur-trimmed cape reached for Crozier’s hand. There could be no doubt who she was.

  Louise’s legs felt weak, and her head was light, as though she might faint. ‘We must go,’ she said. ‘I cannot watch this.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Hob, in a voice she did not recognise. He held her arm tight.

  Only the skipper was still on board, moving about on the deck. He raised a hand to the borderers, who saluted him in reply. His passengers made their way slowly down the quay, Lady Foulberry’s maid and servant shouldering her trunks, Crozier with a hand on Isabella’s elbow. As they approached the place where Louise and Hob were standing, her ladyship’s face came into view. She was scowling, her frown dusted with soot. Her servants’ faces were almost as grey, and their cloaks were filthied with coal from two days in the grimy quarters below deck. The borderers, meanwhile, were clean enough, having stayed above board, where the waves and mist had doused them.

  The menace in Crozier’s face made him look like a stranger. By now he had dropped his hold on Isabella, and she rubbed her arm angrily. She had begun berating him, her words carried away on the breeze, when she caught sight of Louise. Arrested mid-sentence, she came to a halt. ‘What have we here?’ she tittered. ‘Your little wifie come to see what you’ve been up to?’

  She moved towards Louise and put a hand on her cheek. ‘I pity you, my dear,’ she said, ‘with a man as gutless as that. No wonder you have no children.’

  Louise turned crimson, but the woman passed on, her servants trailing in her wake. They had a long climb up to the road and the coaching inn where the castle’s mules awaited.

  Crozier looked at his wife. ‘You have seen for yourself,’ he said. ‘You cannot doubt me now?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Benoit. ‘The besom got something of a shock when Crozier told her what was what, back in that miserable inn.’ He shook his head. ‘But I reckon the skipper will lose his job for letting you lock her below deck.’

  ‘He had no choice,’ Crozier replied, ‘with two swords pointed at him.’

  ‘Aye, but the way he grinned as you tied up the latch . . .’

  Crozier had hoped to use Foulberry’s seal when he sent the letters from Dacre and Margaret Tudor to the English court, but Isabella’s humiliation had severed that connection. Even had she not told her husband what had happened – though C
rozier suspected that theirs was a marriage where the seduction of others was known to both – he dared not waste the time, or risk the danger, of returning to Foulberry’s castle. Instead, he wrapped up two of the letters, one from the dowager queen, professing her love, the other from Dacre begging their correspondence be destroyed, and set out along the border to Berwick Castle, where the Duke of Norfolk was posted over Christmas as the tedious business of sealing a peace treaty dragged on.

  It was late at night when a servant tapped at Norfolk’s door. ‘A parcel, your grace, left on the doorstep. Whoever brought it had gone before I answered his knock.’

  Rising from his bed, Norfolk lit a candle, pulled a nightgown over his shirt, and opened the letters. They crackled in his arthritic hand. An accompanying note, which was not signed, promised many more from the same source. Norfolk called his guards to find the messenger, but he was long gone, as he had feared. The next morning, he despatched a courier with a note for the cardinal in London.

  Quoting the most damaging lines from Margaret’s letter, Norfolk went on to inform Wolsey that, given irrefutable evidence of collusion with the enemy, Dacre’s reputation had been irreparably damaged.

  I for many years have stood by him, as did my dear departed father, respecting his military guile. My regard for his firm hand overruled my scruples about his unorthodox methods, but such leniency can no longer be extended. When your Commission reports, it must find him guilty. I need say no more on this, knowing you to be most sharp in matters of expediency. Naturally, these letters need never be mentioned.

  It remains only for me to tell you that I shall hold on to this most incriminating correspondence against the day when, in your role as Lord Chancellor and Master of Star Chamber, you might require me to appear before it. I need not tell you how ill the king would view such evidence, and the suspicion it casts upon you, given your repeated avowal – during the very years Dacre was dallying with the royal widow – that he was loyal to his backbone. That we discover he was sneaking behind all our backs, bringing the country into danger and disrepute, must strengthen your resolve when the Commission returns, and you are obliged do your duty.