Shake Loose the Border

by Robert Low

  ‘Pole with a bush,’ Big Tam muttered, easing himself so that his long-suffering mount grunted. ‘Might as well play hoodman blind.’

  There will be a light, Batty thought, for those coming across that black water by boat, in the night and with no moon will need something to row for, else they will end up in Solway’s firth.

  John Dubh spotted it, though it was little more than a wan glow, hung from the pole with a bush on it. He called it out and Batty admired his keen sight and then told him to keep his voice down.

  ‘There will be four at least, mayhap five,’ he told them. ‘They will have horses stabled, for they will use this as a place to start patrols from if commanded – but they will be snugged up with drink and possibly a woman or twa.’

  He looked round them all, dashing melting flakes off his lashes. ‘I want no deaths. Fasten them up and find the postern gate key. Once we are back here, we can loosen one set of bonds enough to let him get free in an hour or so.’

  ‘At least we have an extra mount for your wee friend,’ Ewan declared and Batty put him right on that.

  ‘The Ape might not ride and if he does it will not be done well. He walks or travels in a cart when with the Egyptiani, usually with the bears they have. He will have to be taken up by one of us – not me, who has but the yin arm and not Big Tam, whose poor hobby is sway-backed as it is.’

  Big Tam wanted to know more about the bears, but the others shushed him and dismounted. Then they set forward, trying not to crack and crash through the undergrowth and broken fence of the place. Batty moved slowly, painfully aware of the tugs from the healing scars on his back, more aware of the almost irresistible itch.

  It was a low howff with shuttered slits and low-hanging thatch like a draggle’s morning hair. There was only the one way in to a house as thick-walled as Carlisle Castle itself – through the door which huddled under the thatch.

  They crept up to it, brittle on the virgin snow; Ewan pushed, felt the give and then the stop of the bar and looked inquiringly at Batty. Big Tam rolled his shoulders, but Batty stepped in, his fist full of the axe-handled dagg, freshly wound and double-checked. He rapped the axe on the door, then nodded to Big Tam.

  There was the sound of muttering queries, the rattle of the bar being lifted and, just as the door started to open, Big Tam shouldered into it like a falling boulder. There was a sharp yelp, the sound of splintering and then Ewan and John Dubh forced past Tam into the place.

  By the time Batty came in it was all over. Three men huddled in place, one of them blinking owlishly and bleeding from the nose, the others pinned in place by blades and now Batty’s pistol. In the firelit dim a fourth man sat up in a rickety cot, a woman whimpering at his back; the place reeked of sweat, stale food, spilled ale and old sex.

  ‘Now then,’ Batty said. ‘Who here speaks decent English?’

  ‘We all do,’ said the bleeding man, picking himself up from the floor and eyeing John Dubh’s gleaming backsword blade warily. The man squinted up at Batty.

  ‘Is that Barthie Kohlhase there?’

  Batty sighed, feeling shivered and hot at the same time. His back itched and burned and he felt weary, so weary he could not be surprised at the sight of Joachim.

  He said the man’s name and had nothing back. Not a surprise that he is struck dumb, he thought, since I was his Captain-General until he ran off with all the others.

  ‘Joachim Sadoleto,’ he said again. ‘Who has the postern key?’

  Joachim had been a boy when Batty had known him, peacock-proud of his ribbons and feathers and his schwesche, the gaudily painted drum he beat to move people out of the way of the lumbering guns, strutting importantly at the head of the column. He still had his ribbons and feathers, but now he was the oldest one there and a sergeant by his collar-chain. Still, Batty thought, he had run off with the others and that shows his character.

  Joachim looked at him, then the blades surrounding him and gave in. He handed the key over and then, under the watchful eye of Batty’s big pistol, allowed himself to be roped with the others. Big Tam would stay until they got back with the Ape, but the rest sorted out what they wanted to take and Ewan went to fetch the two-hander from his mount. It was a bad idea and Batty agreed with John Dubh when he said it; Ewan would not be put off.

  ‘If I was you, Joachim,’ Batty advised at the door, ‘I would run for the Italies when we turn you loose. Theodore Luchisi will have to shoulder the blame for this, since you are his men and Carlisle’s governor will want you hemped at the very least. They will say you are in on it.’

  ‘Not the Italies,’ Joachim replied miserably. ‘There is famine and the Sweats there.’

  ‘The Germanies then,’ Batty answered coldly and Joachim shook his head.

  ‘The war there has turned too religious for my taste.’

  ‘Then go to Hell.’

  Joachim cocked his head at Batty and closed one eye. ‘You look a bit peaky,’ he offered and Batty could not gainsay him, for he felt it; his back flamed and itched and he felt the sweat roll down and under his belly when he sat at the steering pole of the boat, for all that the black water of the Eden hissed with a snow wind.

  ‘Janet has kilted her green kirtle,

  A little above her knee

  And she has braided her yellow hair

  A little above the brow

  And she’s away to Carterhaugh

  As fast as she can go.’

  He sang it soft in decent English, insidious and rotten as aloes until Ewan told him to stop. ‘Bad enough I do all the rowing without having you with your crow-voice rasping in my lug.’

  ‘I would row,’ Batty offered mildly, ‘if you want to turn in circles.’

  ‘Hist, the pair of ye,’ John Dubh whispered. At the same moment the boat grated and lodged itself on the bank; the oars were stowed and they scrambled up on to the sward.

  It was an irregular patch of green used, in better weather, to turn out the inner ward prisoners for some air and exercise – they played at the football mostly and could not escape because the castle walls came down tight to the Eden at both ends. The only way to flee was to dive into the river and take your chances of getting across before a hot trod galloped round by the brig and dragged you back, bruised and bloody.

  ‘Smart and silent now lads,’ Batty said. ‘Any noise and we’ll be dancing on air and turning around.’

  He went up slowly, feeling as if he didn’t quite fit his own body and it took him three attempts to fit the key in the lock. When he rasped it free, the door shoved open as if on its own – but two figures were framed in it.

  One was the Ape, who scuttled out, shivering in his cloak and shuffling through the snow in too-big shoes. The other was Gib, looking fearfully over his shoulder and winking so hard Batty was sure his eye would fly out.

  ‘Ye need to give me a wee dunt,’ he said and then his bravery cracked. ‘Just a wee yin, mind, enough to make it seem as if I…’

  The blow from John Dubh was meaty and smacking, laid Gib out flat; Batty checked his neck for the heart in the throat and was relieved to find it steady enough; there was blood on Gib’s teeth.

  ‘That was fierce,’ Ewan chided and John Dubh grunted and knelt.

  ‘If ye had wanted less you should have brought a lass to hit him – here, Batty, this is for you.’

  He had rolled Gib out his jack-of-plates and, for a moment, Batty hesitated, then gathered it up, trying hard to hide the shame of thieving it by not looking at anyone.

  ‘Follow us Ape,’ he managed and they scurried back to the boat.

  * * *

  All things that pass must step upon the world, must stroke or grind some trail, move fresh snow, break ice or silence. There is nothing but the sibilant shush of her own blood in her ears, like the slow-beating wings of some giant unseen bird.

  Or an angel, she thought, or the soft pounding of entwined hearts; she had once wished for that, as all girls do before they rush to Carterhaugh and Tam Lin. Now sh
e had climbed the wall of all that back into the welcome darkness of the lost world.

  Clem was ridden off with poor crippled Will and had left Mickle Anthone in charge – and to watch his wife, Gudwife Eliza. Now Mickle Anthone was snoring, victim of the drops she got from the Graham women in return for letting them forage for their rare herbs in the woods. It was a high price they paid, she thought, bowing her head with the weight that pressed her down. I should have killed him, not fed him the same drops and cut off his nose, but she had balked at murder. Nor should I have blamed it on the Egyptiani.

  Now she was out and away. Netherby, she thought, though there might be little welcome from the heidman, Dickon, since he was the one who had arranged her marriage to here originally. That was then and before Nebless Clem; she thought Dickon might be warmer towards her now.

  The snow drifted and the wind sifted, keen as a blade. She turned the hobby towards unlit pastures, the black glades, boughs and trunks scrabbling for the moonlit sky. She blew out a cloud and heeled the horse into it all, feeling pursuers on her back and determined that nothing will find her but morning.

  Chapter Eight

  Morning near Blackscargil

  The weather was going. Mist swirled, but the snow stopped falling and started to melt, leaving dark, wet stains; the moon was unclouded enough to make the patched snow glitter like diamonds.

  It was wet and still cold all the same and Batty felt bad for Fiskie, who deserved to be unsaddled in the warm, rubbed down and fed barley in a bucket. He had none of that the first night they stopped and looked to have the same now. Mind you, he thought, I could do with warm and a bucket of barley my own self. He felt chilled and fevered at the same time and he knew it was no good thing and probably to do with poisons from that whip. Bliddy Turk affair, he was sure. Filthy with auld sins.

  He was warmed by the knowledge that the others and the Ape were safe enough. ‘Tak’ the Ape as far as he will allow,’ he told them, knowing the dwarf might want to keep the secret Egyptiani camp just that – a secret.

  The Ape, lifted on to the front of Ewan’s horse by Big Tam finished scowling at everyone for treating him like a wean, then reached out both hands and took Batty’s single one in a double grip.

  ‘I owe you,’ he said simply. ‘The Randy King owes you.’

  ‘I will want to know how ye came to be caught,’ Batty pointed out and that got a filed-teeth grin in return.

  ‘Drink and women, Batty. Drink and women.’

  Drink and women – Batty could use both now. He knew he was back at the ruined howff where he and the others had first laired, made a fire and some comfort; he did not want a fire now, for he was close to a ruffled Blackscargil, so he huddled and waited for morning, trying to keep his head from nodding off and knowing he would likely fail. Now we see how I stand in the sight of God, he thought before sleep took him, draping a blanket of balm over his slashed and itching back.

  * * *

  We all watched the clever drummer-boy treat the oxen, peering as if it was a Fair Day sideshow, though Batty was keen for the learning in it.

  In a bowl Joachim took fluid from the lung of an ox which had died of wheezing sickness. Then he soaked small pieces of gun cotton wadding in the slorach of it, took a knife and pushed it right under the skin, a handspan from the root of the tail, till it came out at the other side. Then he inserted a piece of the soaked lint in the slot.

  ‘I had this from my da,’ he told them proudly and everyone nodded sagely, as if they also knew the recipe – which was a lie, though few thought it would work.

  The beast got sick – then recovered after a few days and would never get the cursed sickness again. In many cases, however, the tail dropped off below the incision which at least let Batty tell his own beasts from others. Those who saw it crossed themselves and called young Joachim a sorcerer. Those Batty told to sod off and waved steel and pistols at them to show he meant business.

  Luchisi squinted one eye and mused that if this worked on kine, it might work for, say, the Red Pox on men.

  ‘Or just help them die faster,’ Voicha growled. ‘Besides – Batty won’t want to lose his tail.’

  All of this delayed the Company about two weeks, but they had a good spot beside a river, with good grazing and better water. A few lads, Luchisi among them, tried fishing but were no good at it, which made Batty laugh. Luchisi got annoyed and challenged Batty to a contest, thinking a one-armed man was no match even for an indifferent fisherman.

  Batty, drunk and dangerous, waited until Luchisi was by the bank and casting before he hoisted the petard he had made into the river and watched it blow up while he howled with laughter. Luchisi went on his arse in the mud and was rained on by a cascade of water and dead fish; it was only by the grace of God that nothing worse happened.

  Joachim helped gather up the fish but Batty remembered his look of reproach when he woke the next morning to find himself alone on the muddy bank, abandoned and sick with the afterclap of too much drink.

  * * *

  Almost as sick as I am now, he thought, struggling up and knowing something had woken him but not what. A ripple on his neck warned him, a tremble of the ground sending augers up his burning spine; he peered, he squinted, cocked his head and listened. Nothing but welcome darkness in the lost worlds – then Fiskie whuffed and got an answer.

  She came out of the dark and saw him only at the last, a fell, dark figure with a huge pistol in his one hand; she knew him once she had blinked a few times to shred away the shock and managed a strangled little sound.

  Batty grinned, for he knew how he stood in the sight of God and it was no lowly stature. The Lady of Blackscargil. He said it aloud and saw her blanch, then stare with bemused eyes at his singing.

  ‘Just at the mirk and midnight hour

  The fairy folk will ride,

  And they that wad their true-love win,

  At Miles Cross they maun bide.’

  ‘Welcome to Miles Cross,’ he added, grinning up and waggling the pistol muzzle. ‘Light doon and take your ease.’

  ‘I widna be so cantie,’ she answered tartly, annoyed at having been so frightened to whimper before – he was, after all, just a whipped, one-armed man. ‘If you bide here you will find yourself hip deep in men who mean us both no good.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Six at least – two out in front to track, more behind.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘The two trackers are close, the others about an hour – I laid out Mickle Anthone to give me more time.’

  ‘Laid him out how?’

  She told him while he limped to his horse and painfully clambered on it. ‘You are suffering,’ she added and he agreed with a curt nod, reining Fiskie round.

  ‘Would be worse if you had not held his hand from me, so my thanks for that.’

  They rode out in silence for a bit, until an amorous dog fox yelped and seemed to break the spell that kept their mouths tight.

  ‘Whither bound?’ he asked. ‘Or are ye just running? And why – I thought you were cosy with the man? Is it his missing neb?’

  ‘His missing heart,’ she answered and there was a wealth of bleak there that out-froze the wind hissing on them. She leaned forward yearning to bathe in moonbeams from the wintery glade where shadows met, flowed and vanished.

  Her mind sloughed off pretension, the dreams auld Dickon had placed in her regarding marriage to the Laird of Blackscargil, the results of it, what she had done and what had been done to her. Tomorrow the ice on the well will crack and ripple under her red chapped hands, as it had when she was girl. Tomorrow she would again be that girl back in her home, tomorrow she would beat washing on stones and hang fish in the smokehouse.

  ‘Take me home to Netherby.’

  Batty rode in silence for another eyeblink or two. ‘It was not always so,’ he ventured and she hunched up in her wool cloak and said nothing for the longest time, while the moon darted from cloud to cloud as if ashamed.

&
nbsp; ‘It was not always so,’ she agreed eventually. ‘Dickon made me wed on to the auld Laird of Blackscargil for the advantage in it and I was never mair pleased to see Clem Selby when he arrived.’

  She stopped, smeared with memories, then took a breath. ‘The thought was to wait, for he was auld, my husband and when he was gone, I would get married on to Clem.’

  ‘And live happily ever after, God bless the house,’ Batty muttered, sure that something noxious was running from his back. ‘Did your husband suspect nothing then? Or not care ower much?’

  ‘Clem killed my husband,’ she said flatly. ‘When it was clear he was not so advanced in years he would countenance being a cuckold. Clem felled him with a blow, dragged him to the roof with Mickle Anthone’s help and threw him down. They gave out that he had fallen but naebody was cozened by that.’

  ‘Least of all yerself,’ Batty offered, ‘but yet you stuck with it. Until you realised he would never wed you, since he had gotten what he wanted anyway.’

  She hunched in her cloak, looking at the ground.

  ‘A bad cess of nae good,’ Batty added. ‘I have felt your new man’s cruelty mistress – is he among those on our track?’

  ‘He has gone to Carlisle with your friend, Will Elliot and most of the fighting men.’

  Good in one way, pity in another, Batty thought. They came up into a morning filled with moorhens paddling in pools that did not know whether to be ice, a roll of snow-patched bracken and gorse studded with copses of beach, hazel and oak. They skirted a huddle of buildings fired to ash long since, victims of the wars and here Batty drew up the stumbling Fiskie.

  ‘Need to rest the beasts, else they will founder.’

  Eliza fretted a little that Batty had lost the way to Netherby, but climbed stiffly off and said nothing on it. Batty fumbled a handful of oats from his store and fed both horses; they lipped his hand eagerly, looked woeful when no more came and fell to standing, muzzle to muzzle, breathing in each other’s smoking breath.