A Dish of Spurs

by Robert Low

  For a time Batty had thought he might have to kill the man, but Tinnis’s Faerie had stopped him cold and now his leader and companions would be back to hunt the hill, not knowing exactly where Batty lay on it.

  The mist was handy and they would balk at stumbling around in it, but they would soon find a trail or two, fresh and clear as a torch-guide on a cobbled street, leading through the gorse and alder at its foot. Batty smiled, vicious as adders.

  He did his work amid the dripping mirr, his panting and grunting muffled and falling as dead sounds to the mulched moorland. Teeth and leather thongs and his one hand worked, while his feet were careless with twigs and his knees with branches, bending the whip-thin trees. There were few enough of them, wee hardy affairs huddled together in clumps as if trembling at the loom of Tinnis above them; Batty’s clear trail led from one to another, like a fox sliding back to its lair.

  Then he hunkered and waited, chewing damp bread in the soaking mist. It would be down all day now, he knew, for it must be mid-morning and would have burned off or blown away if there had been a sun anywhere beyond it, or a puff of wind.

  The lads were tardy, he thought and smiled. Sore heads and bad bellies, no doubt of it. Wishing they were laid in the warm and dry to shut their eyes and sleep off the thump and maze inside their skulls.

  He heard them with the jingle of a bridle and was instantly alert. He did not move, but let them come to him, and they were slow about it, for this was Tinnis in a mist, which was worse than Tinnis in the dark.

  ‘Here,’ called a voice, which made even Batty start.

  ‘Shush,’ growled another. ‘Why leave him sleeping safe in the mist when we can wake him up and have him run us all over the hill? Ye capernicious gowk.’

  It was Hutchie. Batty would know the voice anywhere and sat back on his heels, stroking his raggled, wet beard and thinking on it. It was a surprise that Hutchie was here, and no doubt the Laird had ordered it. Had he done so with the intent of putting Hutchie within reach?

  No doubt. The Laird of Hollows was cunning as a weasel hunting rabbit. If Hutchie succeeded, the matter was done. If I take this opportunity, Batty thought, then Hutchie dies and the matter is still done; both rescue Armstrong honour from it at little cost. And if Hutchie dies, the Laird will find a sleekit way to dispose of me later, with no honour in it at all.

  He had not considered the possibility of Hutchie and so his plans altered then and there, from simple to red murder in an eyeblink. For now, he followed the original path of it and warbled through his cupped hands.

  ‘Men of Hollows. Begone.’

  ‘Christ in Heaven.’

  They stopped, confused and afraid. Scarted Wat crossed himself and mumbled wardings; Hutchie was scathing.

  ‘Off. Dismount, you fools, It is not Faerie, but Batty – here is his trail.’

  ‘He can see us,’ muttered Red Dand suspiciously and Hutchie rounded on him.

  ‘Then he will have eyes like burning coals to see through this mirk,’ Hutchie retorted scornfully, ‘which was no part of the Batty I knew. He needs eyeglasses, I am told.’

  Now that was a foul lie and Batty bridled at it. He would need them to read with, he admitted, but since he could not read at all, there was no need for eyeglasses.

  He reached in the bag of adders with his gauntleted hand and plucked one out, watching it curl sluggishly and flick the air with its little Devil’s tongue. This one was near black, with a faint lightning streak pattern, but it was as mazed as any drunk with the cold.

  ‘Begone – or accept a gift from the powrie of Tinnis.’

  He lobbed it at them, heard the slight body hiss in mid-air. There was a moment’s pause, then a frantic rustling as people sped away from it, followed by cursing and the sound of fevered beating. Batty laughed and drew out another.

  ‘Medusa’s combing,’ he fluted and lobbed that one too.

  Red Dand was whirling this way and that, for he was not sure the first one had been properly killed and was heading back to his horse to get off the ground and trust to it to spot the wee beastie. The second one plopped on his shoulder, and for a moment he could scarcely believe it. Then he yelled, ‘Serpens! Serpens!’ Folk saw him do a wild jig, flailing his arms furiously. Buttery John laughed and then Red Dand felt the sting of the strike and could not believe it.

  ‘I am bit. I am bit – oh God…’

  Hutchie stamped on the fallen snake, but the ground was soft and he saw it slither out from under his foot. He chopped at it, saw it hit and writhe, curling round the wound. When he looked, only the tail was there.

  ‘Now you have made two,’ Scarted Wat said bitterly, and Hutchie, blinking and sweating despite the chill mist, rounded on him, bellowing so all of them could hear.

  ‘Get on. Get after him. Find his lair and end this.’

  Red Dand was sitting stunned and holding his neck. He looked up at Hutchie with the eyes of a frightened bairn.

  ‘I am bit,’ he said. Hutchie cursed him and moved on.

  Batty listened to the crack and scramble of them through the tussocked moorland grass and the knots of trees, following the clear-made trail of snapped twigs, the white new bark of them bright as a blaze. There was a sudden swishing sound and a slap, followed by a sharp cry. Then there was silence for a moment, until a voice, thick with pain, broke the stillness.

  ‘My neb. Christ, my neb is broke.’

  Batty nodded with satisfaction; if the man had stayed mounted, the whipping spring-trap would have slapped the chest of his horse and made it rear and buck. But the nose of a man was better, and blind with snot and blood and tears, he would be less of a problem.

  A few steps further in and a scream rent the air; Batty knew that one was the stake on a pole, at fetlock height for a horse, shin height for a man. That would hurt…

  He lobbed more adders until he heard one man curse him, and then Hutchie, the Faerie, the mist and Tinnis all one after another, and knew he had broken them; he checked the powder and priming of his brace of pistols.

  Now was the new part of his plan; he took a deep breath and started to move.

  Hutchie, scowling and red-faced with fury, ranted and roared so that Batty could have found him in the dark, never mind the mist. But his men had had enough of him and mist and Batty and Tinnis all.

  Two had contrived to toe out some of the moss in a dip and were getting Red Dand to leap the seep of puddle in it – it was well known that leaping over water in the presence of the adder that bit you was a cure.

  ‘Sheepskin,’ Scarted Wat was saying firmly. ‘Fresh killed, wrap it round you and you will be cured of the strike.’

  ‘An ointment of rosemary and betony,’ said another and then frowned. ‘Or a potion of goosegrass juice and wine.’

  ‘That is for thorn pricks,’ said Buttery John, levering himself painfully onto his mount; Hutchie saw the blood on his leg and the man saw Hutchie look.

  ‘An inch or two more,’ he said bitterly, ‘and I would be picking my cods off them spikes.’

  ‘An inch or two more sense and eyesight,’ Hutchie spat back, ‘and it would never have happened.’

  He turned to them, about to wheedle and plead now, but most were concerned with the getting of their mounts, and Red Dand was beginning to have trouble breathing, his neck red save for the two purple spots where the snake had bit.

  ‘A live pigeon,’ Scarted Wat was saying, snapping his fingers as he remembered. ‘Laid against the bite.’

  ‘Does it work for nebs?’ demanded Maggie’s Tam Armstrong, the blood drying on his beard and his voice bitter with pain and the bad cess of his lot.

  It got worse with the sudden fizz and bang, a great gout of smoke that milked into the mist. The ball intended for Hutchie missed because Hutchie had just turned away from them with exasperation, throwing his arms into the air – it went between the fingers of his right hand and struck the life from Maggie’s Tam with a smacking gout of throat blood and torn flesh.

  There
were shouts now. A second shot cracked, the flame of it tearing the mist to shreds for a moment, so that everyone saw the dark, hazy shape of a one-armed man.

  The ball went hissing towards Hutchie, but it was a hasty shot and struck Scarted Wat’s horse, which barrelled over with a thin shriek and a whirl of leg and hooves.

  Cursing, Batty thought of throwing down the second pistol and dragging his sword out, but there were too many of them still – so he stuck the hot barrel in his belt, swept up the dropped pistol and hirpled off into the mist, worried now about being pursued.

  He need not have done. Hutchie was second in the saddle only because Buttery John was already mounted and reining round. The others scrambled for their horses and scurried out, leaving Scarted Wat trailing after them on foot, screaming at them to wait and take him up.

  Panting, sweating and chilled, Batty stopped eventually, hand on his knee and his bead bowed, the drool falling on his beard and his lungs burning. After a while he pounded his knee until it hurt, venting his frustration until he calmed and breathed normally.

  Too much to hope that he might have ended the business here. Instead, he had killed another Armstrong outright and maybe done for more, if venom and wound rot were allowed to run.

  The Laird of Hollows would not like that, for it was not the outcome he had sought.

  Hollows Tower

  Later that day

  The Laird of Hollows did not like it. Which, to all those who stayed wisely in the shadows and did not draw attention to themselves, was a bit like saying the plague would make you cough a bit.

  He roared and scathed and saved the worst curl of his wrath for Hutchie, who had to stand there and take it, though it was flaying the skin from his face.

  ‘You are a hotterel, skrinkie-faced bauchle. A dawlie dwaffle. One man deid, twa hurt and anither like to die of pizen frae an adder. By God, you left the deid man out on the Faerie hill.’

  He paced, red-faced and sweating off his jowls like rain, his fine manners gone and his Borders accent thick as clotted blood in his throat.

  ‘You couldnae even bring him safe back, to be mourned and kisted up.’

  Hutchie stood, blinking under the blast, but holding his ground until the Laird rounded on him with a dismissive wave, recovering himself enough to speak clearly.

  ‘You are a useless scrap of nothing at all. You could not find a crawling babe. You could not bring a one-armed fat old man off a hill. Leckie – take this dung fly to the undercroft, before I forget myself and hemp him up like the filthy wee bugger-back that he is.’

  Hutchie went to prison and gladly, knowing he was needed alive and would no longer be trusted to face the likes of Batty; the wind of that ball between his fingers puckered his nethers even as he stumbled down the wind of stair to a safe prison.

  Those left in the hall saw the Laird turn and scowl for a while at the fire, until the whisper of slippers on flags brought him from the reverie; he turned into his Lady’s stare.

  ‘Another death,’ she said pointedly. ‘An Armstrong left in the Tinnis bracken – how does that balance the pan with Hutchie Elliott weighting the far side of it?’

  ‘We will fetch poor Maggie’s Tam back – no more on that,’ he growled, waving her away, and then turned to Leckie, who was waiting, face like a floured bap and well used to the Laird and his ranting.

  ‘Where is Clym these days?’ he demanded, and folk looked one to the other, while Leckie coughed and thought. The Lady made a sound of disgust and a face that would curdle milk, seen by the Laird out of the corner of his eye, though he ignored her.

  ‘Clym… in Jedburgh, I believe,’ Leckie replied hesitantly.

  ‘Fetch him,’ the Laird declared savagely.

  ‘Clym Hen-harrow,’ the Lady said, icy as the draught curling round everyone’s ankles. ‘Is that your solution? Set a rogue to catch a rogue, is it? A Nameless man to bring honour to the Name? By God, husband, you are piling mistake on error here – you hand over Hutchie Elliott and the horse and be done with it all.’

  The Laird cared little for censure and less for it being done publicly and not at all for it being done by his wife, who could get away with it. His face grew white and pinched, which was something even Leckie had not seen before and he did not care for it at all.

  ‘Aye,’ the Laird said, stiff as a starched collar. ‘The horse. I had forgot that. Batty spoke of the horse.’

  He strode to the wall and hauled down the Armstrong Sword from where it hung, a rasping ring of steel that set everyone’s teeth on edge. It was an awful blade, as everyone said, a great affair whose hilt could take four fists, and the length of it was as tall as the Laird himself, who was not a small man.

  He wielded it as Champion of the Name and it was said no one in Liddesdale, Eskdale, Cumberland or elsewhere was the match for him – and though it had been a time since he’d had to prove it, it was clear he had the strength to lift it still.

  The strength for even more, as everyone saw and marvelled in horror at.

  He strode to the stables with it, scattering people from his path, brawled his way into the place and watched the Fyrebrande lean over in hope of a titbit. Then he swung, without a single word.

  He had the strength and there might have been old webs on the length of the blade, but it was sharp. Save for a last ribbon of flesh, the Fyrebrande’s head came off with a meaty chunk of sound and the blood hissed like one of Batty’s adders.

  People screamed; a stable lad fainted, for he had taken a fancy to the fine beast, and even those who had not been so enamoured were scalded by such a treatment of good horseflesh.

  But the Laird simply leaned on the dripping blade, watching the steaming tarn of blood leak from under the door and the head flop. Besides a kick or two from the headless corpse, that was the end of the Fyrebrande and everyone knew it.

  ‘Take the head to Powrieburn and stick it up on a pole,’ the Laird commanded and no one needed to ask why.

  He handed the sword to two others to clean and restore to the wall, then worked a wrenched shoulder muscle, and paused only once on his way out, to stare into the flint of his wife’s disapproving stare.

  ‘Hutchie is mine. The horse is mine. Everything in Hollows is mine, to do with as I please, when I please and for my honour.’

  Then he walked back into the reek-dimmed hall, bawling for someone to fix the fire.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Powrieburn

  Lent (February)

  Will rode over from Hermitage – which he did like a determined dog even when the rain lashed and even when there seemed little hope in it. The day Mintie had consented to welcome him in herself, stiff and polite and cold-voiced though she’d been, was a heart-leap of joy which had made it all worthwhile.

  The horse head was a slap to the face, and Bet’s Annie, shawled against the drizzle, had met Will at the bastel door, her face grim as Tinnis in the dark.

  ‘Aye – the Fyrebrande. Death of Powrieburn’s hopes,’ she said, and a voice from the dim had corrected her at once, steeled and sharp.

  ‘The Fyrebrande was gone from us the day I took it to Hollows.’

  Mintie stepped out into the yard, heedless of the rain spotting her kertch, heedless of the tendrils of hair escaping from it. She looked up at Will with eyes like agate.

  ‘It is important only because of the mark it sends,’ she said, ‘that black rent for the safety of Batty Coalhouse is rescinded by the Laird. I am sorry for it and him.’

  Will stirred himself then and pointed out that the horse had been used to ransom everyone’s safety, but Mintie was flint and iron.

  ‘Powrieburn will look to its own,’ she said and then nodded politely to him. ‘You would do me a service were you to convey the Laird’s message to Master Coalhouse.’

  Then she turned and went inside, Bet’s Annie trailing after like a gull following a fishing smack.

  Will sat for while, the rain dripping off the brim of his hat, his gloves sodden with it and his
fine cloak seeped through. Part of him cursed her for her casual latching of him to the finding of Batty and the way she had worded it, the way she knew he would do it because of how he felt.

  The other part sang at the thought of pleasing her with it.

  So he turned and rode up to the wet bleak of Tinnis, riding open and taking his time about it, making sure he could be seen. It took a long time and he was just on the edge of being convinced that he had soaked himself to the bone in misery for no reason, when the voice had spoken to him out of a tangle of whin.

  ‘Well met, No-Toes.’

  He rose out of bracken and rowan, so surprisingly close that Will was flustered by it, until he realised that Batty had honed these skills long since; being a wolf-head in Saxony would have sharpened them, certes.

  ‘You are looking fine,’ Batty said with his old undershot grin making it wry. ‘Being the law in Liddesdale agrees you well.’

  To Will, Batty looked wood-smoked and rough, but no less kettle-bellied and no less determined, so he forswore all the pleasantries and laid out the meat of what he knew, and watched Batty’s face set like moulded iron.

  ‘Tell her I will come,’ he said, and Will bridled finally.

  ‘Tell her yourself,’ he spat back. ‘Am I a herald for the pair of you?’

  Then he checked his furious reining round, the rain flying from the bit end.

  ‘Mark me, Batty,’ he said. ‘I hear a man is dead at Hollows and others sore hurt. Did you know that Clem Armstrong died at Whithaugh, of the blood fever in his leg? It turned black and crept to his soul and ended him.’

  Batty had not, but was not surprised. Will nodded, vehement and savage.

  ‘Yet another to your tally. There can be no more, Batty, for I will be forced to move on it from Hermitage. I will not have more murder in Liddesdale.’

  Batty wiped drips from the end of his nose and nodded sagely.

  ‘Whether you want it or not is neither here nor there,’ he replied flatly. ‘Murder is in Liddesdale, as it was when you were Land Sergeant and was when you were all snotters and skinned knees. As it will be when you are cold in your grave. Murder in Liddesdale is a right.’