by H A CULLEY
‘I agree with the earl, sire.’ Guy put in. Lothian, and Berwickshire in particular, have prospered in the many years of peace between Scotland and England. You would risk putting an end to that by stirring up this hornet’s nest.’
‘Both of you are only concerned with your own lands; you care nothing for the honour of Scotland that Henry of England trampled all over when my poor brother was on the throne.’ William’s angry eyes swept the room. ‘This is an ideal opportunity for us to regain what is rightfully ours.’ William was ever headstrong and nothing that Waltheof, Guy or Walter FitzAlan could say would make him change his mind. In the end plans were made for a muster of the Scots army at Berwick whilst Waltheof would remain to co-ordinate the defence of Scotland in case the English counter-attacked, and Guy was left to defend Berwick. Both saw this as a sign of royal disfavour but they were relieved not be involved in what they saw as an ill-advised adventure. The Scots had little or no proper siege equipment and so the expedition was bound to concentrate on raiding and pillaging, rather than capturing castles and holding ground.
~#~
Whilst the council of war was being held in Berwick Claire de Muschamp set off into the hills above Otterburn with her peregrine falcon to spend the day hawking. She was accompanied by Richard’s head falconer and three serjeants. Richard had insisted on the escort as Scots still raided across the border from time to time, though it was usually by night, and he had recently had another argument in the long running dispute with Robert de Roos about the ownership of Wark. The castle remained a royal one but de Roos hadn’t given up his hope of gaining Wark to add to his adjacent manor of Carham. Luckily he spent most of his time on his estates in Yorkshire but recently he had returned to Carham on the death of the cousin who he had held that manor.
If he thought that a man in his fifties would be able to browbeat one in his twenties and succeed where he had failed against Richard’s father, de Roos was sadly mistaken. He had left Otterburn vowing revenge. Richard had a premonition about de Roos’s animosity; hence Claire’s escort.
When Claire and her party didn’t return by dark Richard became seriously concerned. He sent for Elliot Elwold, the hunting companion of his boyhood. The ugly boy had turned into an even uglier man. Richard still enjoyed spending the day stalking game with Elliot when he had the time but, sadly, that wasn’t often these days. They went up into the hills and scoured the area as best they could by moonlight but when the clouds came and it started to rain they went back to Otterburn Castle to wait for the morning.
At dawn Richard set out with two of his best knights, including Turstin, who had been his father’s squire before he was knighted, one of his foresters who was a skilled tracker and his best archer in addition to Elliot. His two squires, Warren and Jocelyn and the squires of the two knights came with them to take care of the horses if the rescue party had to cross into Scotland on foot. Richard was fairly certain that Claire would be being held across the border if, as he feared, she had been abducted. As the other alternative was that she was dead he tried not to think about it. He would have preferred to leave Jocelyn behind but the boy was pleaded with him and Richard felt he had a right to find out what had become of his sister as soon as possible.
Half an hour after setting out they found the bodies of two of the serjeants in a hollow in the hills not three miles from Otterburn. The chief falconer and a wounded serjeant were tied up nearby. Of Claire there was no sign, except that her palfrey was placidly grazing nearby with the serjeants’ horses. Richard was surprised that they had been left, as they were valuable, but perhaps, if the abductors had been on foot, they were travelling on paths unsuitable for horses.
It didn’t take the survivors long to relate what had happened once they were untied. They had been heading back to the castle through the hills when the bracken beside the track had erupted with men.
‘Bare arsed Scots they were, my lord, at least a dozen of them,’ the chief falconer explained, with an apologetic look at Elliot who never wore anything except a short tunic. ‘They leaped at Stephen and Baldwin, pulled them from their horses and killed them before they could do anything, Cedric put up more of a fight but he was wounded and knocked out with a rock. Once the serjeants were out of the picture there was little that I could do, unarmed as I was, my lord.’ He was correct, of course, but he looked down at the ground in shame.
‘And what of Lady Claire?’ Richard prompted him.
‘They tied us up so I couldn’t see properly but a boy came running up with one of those little horses they ride and they all appeared to set off heading north. I did catch a glimpse of Lady Claire’s legs kicking wildly so I think she must have been alright, though I assume they must have tied her across a pony.’
Hugh’s men helped the falconer to put the two dead soldiers over their horses and then he and the wounded serjeant led them back for proper burial at Otterburn. Hugh told him to let the constable know that they were setting off on the trail of the raiding party.
They followed the trail for fifteen miles until it crossed the border at the pass between Peel Fell and the Larriston Fells. Here they dismounted and left the four squires to take the horses back to Keilder Castle and to wait for them there. It was now approaching noon and the six men had a quick meal of bread and cheese before setting off on foot into Liddesdale. The tracker led the way but the trail was easy to follow until they came to a small stream in the valley the other side of Larriston Fells. Here they had to go carefully because there was a group of grass roofed houses about a mile to the north. Then the shepherd pointed out a flock of sheep on the hillside above the hamlet. Where there were sheep there was probably a shepherd.
The six men carefully moved down the burn keeping under cover as much as possible. After half a mile they found where the raiders had climbed the bank and headed west. After following the trail for another mile they came out of a small copse and saw a small tower straight ahead of them. The tower was built of stone and stood four storeys high. The only access was a small doorway at second storey level with a flight of wooden stairs leading up to it. The place looked impregnable.
By now it was mid-afternoon and the rescue party settled down to wait until nightfall before approaching the tower. An hour before dark a slatternly looking girl of perhaps sixteen came down the stairs carrying two leather buckets. She made for the burn about a hundred yards from where Richard and his men were hidden.
She had just filled the second bucket when she was grabbed from behind by Turstin who put a dagger to her throat. When she was pulled round to face Richard he saw that she was terrified, as well she might be. He eyes darted towards the tower but it was hidden from view behind some stunted trees and bushes. It didn’t take much persuasion to make her to talk. She was certain that she was going to be raped or killed or both, especially with Elliot leering at her and sharpening his dirk.
Elliot interrogated her in the local Lowland Scots dialect and managed to find out that a fine lady, as the girl had put it, had arrived at the tower late yesterday and was being kept in a locked room on the top floor. She didn’t know her name but she said that she thought that the leader of the men who had brought her was called Callum Mac Kenneth. Elliot added that he had never heard of him. The tower was called Larriston Tower and it was the home of the girl’s father, Malcolm Elwold. Elliot knew him only too well; he was his uncle. Normally seven men lived there but Callum had also left three of his men to guard the lady. The girl couldn’t tell them anymore.
The men clustered round Richard to discuss how to rescue Claire, leaving one to guard the Elwold girl. Obviously she was not as subdued as they thought because she suddenly broke free, kicked her captor where it really hurt and sprinted towards the tower yelling at the top of her voice.
Richard saw no alternative but to flee and they made their way back upstream towards the pass on the border as fast as they could. It wasn’t long before they heard the hoof beats of garrons coming up fast behind them. Their best bet
now was to turn and fight. Richard and the two knights had swords and the rest had dirks. The archer strung his bow and waited. He managed to lose two arrows before the Scots were onto them and both killed a rider. Then a sword cut the archer down. Now it was six against five but the shepherd and the tracker were not trained to use weapons. The Elwolds were doughty fighters but Richard, the two knights and Elliot were more than a match for them; two more Scots died and, when the rest drew off, Richard glanced around. Turstin was wounded in the right arm, not badly but it made him a liability instead of an asset, and the tracker was dead. That left two trained fighting men and Elliot. Then they heard more men approaching from the hamlet they had seen when they crossed the border. In the twilight Richard saw that they were now surrounded by about ten men and so he surrendered rather than waste any more lives. In the confusion Elliot saw his chance and vanished into the undergrowth.
Richard and his two men were tied together round the base of a large tree. The Scots had at least bandaged Turstin’s arm and, although blood had seeped through the dressing in some quantity, the flow seemed to be easing. The Scots decided to make camp where they were and discuss what to do with their captives in the morning.
In the early hours Richard was woken by a hand on his shoulder and a warning not to make a sound. At first he thought his captors wanted to interrogate him but the voice sounded oddly like Jocelyn’s. Once they were cut free they crept away into the undergrowth past a sentry whose throat had been cut.
When they were far enough away from the Scots camp not to be heard they stopped. Richard learned to his amazement that their rescuers were Jocelyn, Warren and a grinning Elliot. The two youths had ignored his orders and left the other two squires to look after the horses whilst they followed the rescue party at a safe distance.
‘We were hiding in the undergrowth when you pounded back past us followed by men on horseback,’ the ever ebullient Jocelyn told them. ‘So we followed and then found Elliot, or rather he found us. We waited for the middle of the night before Elliot cut the throat of the sleeping sentry. I’m not sure I could have done it. Warren and I then crept down to cut you free. Warren was very quiet and moved like a shadow, I just followed what he did. I don’t think I could have done it on my own.’
It was too dark to see but Richard was prepared to wager a fair amount that Warren was looking embarrassed at Jocelyn’s obvious hero worship. His senior squire was a quiet, shy youth who just got on with things and hated to be the centre of attention. Jocelyn, a year his junior, was quite the opposite – lively, engaging and enthusiastic; but not always the most reliable when it came to his more mundane duties.
The party set out again back towards the border and had gone about a mile along the stream when they heard very faint shouts. Their escape had obviously been discovered. Still, the Scots would have difficulty in tracking them before daybreak. When they came to where they had to leave the stream and head uphill they decided to follow the contours of the ground, trying to stay in the bottom of a gully as it led up towards the pass.
When dawn broke they had expected to be over the pass but they had gone wrong somewhere because Peel Fell was to their right and it should have been to their left. Richard led the group into cover and they crouched down to discuss what to do.
Warren was slim and light; so much so that it caused Richard some concern as knights needed to carry enough weight to unseat their opponents. But, at nineteen, Warren still had nearly two years to fill out and put on some muscle. Larriston Tower would probably be deserted now except for the three Armstrong men. If they doubled back perhaps the lad could climb the outside of the tower at night and come down and unbolt the door so they could rescue Claire. Richard decided that it was probably their best chance but he was concerned about his wounded knight and about Jocelyn’s safety. Robert Muschamp and his wife would never forgive him if anything happened to their youngest son, especially after the abduction of their daughter.
He therefore decided to send Jocelyn and the two knights back to Kielder with Elliot as guide whilst he and Warren continued with the rescue. Elliot protested but Richard pointed out that the other three would get lost in the unfamiliar terrain without him. That decided, they found a small stream and waded along it for a few hundred yards just in case their pursuers had any hunting dogs. After a while Jocelyn and the others left the stream and continued up Liddesdale heading for the pass at Carter Bar whilst Richard and Warren stayed in the stream for a little longer before coming out on the north bank. They could then make their way back past their pursuers on the other side of the valley. Once at Carter Bar the others could make their way back down Redesdale.
Now that the element of surprise was lost they were to raise the alarm when they reached Byrness, the nearest of Richard’s manors in Redesdale, and arrange for a party of knights and men-at-arms to travel up to Kielder to meet Richard on his return, hopefully accompanied by Claire.
Richard and Warren had to hide in the undergrowth when the Elwolds went past with four hunting dogs on the trail of the others. They were about four hundred yards away on the other side of the stream and upwind so there was little chance of the dogs detecting them. They saw no-one else until they came in sight of the peel tower again in the middle of the afternoon.
Luckily the Scots didn’t return before dark. Warren had learned to climb on the crags near his home to steal bird’s eggs as a small boy but he could see by the light of the moon that stone walls of the tower wouldn’t be easy going. Unlike some towers, the stone that had been used for this tower was not the roughly cut type that provided easy hand and foot holds but, instead, had been cut square. In any case there was a sentry on the roof of the tower. He didn’t seem particularly active or alert but it did make that means of accessing the interior hopeless.
After studying the outside of the tower for twenty minutes he suggested to Lord Richard that the only way on was via the small, shuttered window above the door at first floor level. The window ledge was four feet above the door but it might be possible for him to reach it if he stood on the post beside the door that anchored the top of the wooden steps to the tower.
Warren sprinted across the open ground as soon as cloud obscured the moon for a few minutes, praying that he wouldn’t be seen by the sentry. He paused at the bottom of the steps to allow his breathing to return to normal then slowly and carefully made his way up the steps, testing each tread in case it creaked. He put his right foot on the side rail where it joined the upright post and, steadying himself against the wall, stood up and placed his other foot on top of the post. Pressing his body against the wall, he inched his fingers up the wall until he felt the rough edge of the windowsill. He could only get his fingers onto the ledge so he would have to push off from the post and just pray he could pull himself onto the small windowsill. He resisted the temptation to look down and steeled himself for the jump.
He pushed as hard as he could with his left leg and managed to get his forearms onto the windowsill. A minute later he was crammed into the small opening, his knees and shoulders bent and his head almost touching his knees. The window was unglazed but the internal shutters were closed. He cautiously pulled out his dagger and slid the blade into the gap between the two shutters. He had no idea who or how many there might be the other side of the window but he could hear soft snoring so at least one person was asleep in the room. He lifted his dagger and pushed the locking bar the other side of the shutters up until he could gingerly push the shutters open.
Little moonlight got passed his crouching body but he could just make out a large bed made out of roughly hewn tree trunks. There seemed to be only one occupant and, from the soft snores he guessed it was probably a woman: probably the chieftain’s wife or mistress. He was getting cramp sitting doubled up so he slid his legs inside the room and, feeling with his feet, found the top of a coffer under the window. As he lowered his weight onto it the coffer lid creaked and he froze. However, the gentle snoring continued so he cautiously stepped
down onto the floor. Testing for creaking floorboards, he tiptoed across to the door.
Thankfully the hinges didn’t squeak and, shutting it quietly behind him, he crept up the circular staircase to the next floor. This had a single door which didn’t appear to be locked so he carried on up to the floor above. There were two doors off a small landing here but only one was bolted on the outside. The bolt squeaked as he pulled it open. The slower he pulled it the more it seemed to squeak so he risked a quick pull. Strangely it did not squeak at all this time.
He cautiously opened the door and peered inside, only to be hit in the mouth by a small fist.
‘Oh, Warren, I’m so sorry. Are you alright? How did you get here?’ Claire whispered in a mixture of consternation and puzzlement.
‘Fine, my lady. Just bleeding a little’ He said as he spat a gob of bright red blood onto the floor. ‘Have they harmed you?’ Claire shook her head. ‘Lord Richard is waiting outside. Where are the three guards?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been locked in that room ever since they brought me here. Probably in the hall; that’s on the first floor. The outside door leads straight into it.’ Warren nodded and led the way down the circular staircase. He opened the door that led into the hall and peered inside. There was a brazier standing under a hole in the wall that took the smoke outside – or most of it. It was still glowing and by its light Warren could just make out several bodies wrapped in blankets lying on the bare flagstone floor. It would be risky to try and sneak between them without making someone up so Warren closed the door again and whispered to Claire that they would just have to make a run for it and hope for the best. But just at that moment they heard noises outside and the door opened to admit the returning Elwold men.
‘What do we do now?’ Whispered Claire in despair as they quietly crept back upstairs.
