Winter Roses

by Anita Mills

  There was no time to wait. “Nay, she comes down to tend Kenneth.” Reluctantly, Will reached to take the boy. “ ’Tis all right—I’ll take him to the kitchen to the woman myself.”

  As he crossed the courtyard past the milling men and horses, William shifted Jamie against his shoulder. The child clutched his tunic tightly and twisted to watch the small mesnie mount up.

  “Ewan says ye ride to kill the English—I would that I could see it.”

  “ ’Tisna anything for a wee one’s eyes,” Will retorted gruffly. “Besides, the Woolfords are English,” he reminded him.

  “I hate the Woolfords,” Jamie responded bitterly. “Nay, ye’ll kill all the raiders—I know it. Ye’ll make them rue the day they crossed the border, won’t ye?”

  “Aye.”

  “Ewan says there isna another like ye. He says ye can cleave a horse’s neck with an axe,” the boy continued, betraying his excitement. “He says—”

  “ ’Twould seem Ewan talks overmuch,” William muttered, crossing the threshold into the kitchen.

  “He says there isna any as can stand against the Barber.”

  “ ’Tis but an axe like any other.” It wasn’t true, and William knew it, but the boy’s admiration made him uncomfortable.

  “Aye. Ewan says ’tis the swing as matters, and there’s none as can wield it like ye.”

  “ ’Tis my size,” Will admitted tersely. “Ena!” he called out. “Come take the boy, that I may ride!”

  For all that William had tried, he still had difficulty accepting Jamie, and he felt great guilt for it. As soon as Ena reached for the boy Will shifted him onto her shoulder. But as he looked downward he could not miss the wistful expression on the small face. He found himself needing to say something.

  “Here now—have a care for your mother and Ena, James. The women worry when the men ride out, ye know.”

  “I would I went with ye. I’d see ye hang ’em.”

  Will started to say he was too little, then thought better of it. Instead, he tweaked the boy’s good foot. “Nae this time.” His eyes met Ena’s. “After ye get the boy to bed, I’d hae ye aid Arabella with Kenneth. Lang Gib says he is sorely wounded.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  It was not until he was nearly out of the kitchen that he heard Jamie call out, “God aid ye and the Barber!”

  Will swung around and raised his hand in acknowledgment. “I’ll bring back an English dagger for ye,” he promised.

  It wasn’t until he’d heaved himself into his saddle and given the order to lower the bridge that he wondered why he’d said it. It showed, he supposed, that even he was not proof against the boy’s words. Besides, it was not much to offer—and God aided him, he’d bring back more than that, anyway. And God aided him, the men of Dunashie would wear English mail when he was done.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dawn broke through the cold mists that covered the desolate, treeless hilltops and dipped to the lonely gullies below. William reined in and took stock of the endless ridges of rock and dead, rough grass ahead. There stretched the craggy, stony mountains, the lean wasteland he knew as the Cheviot Hills. Even the place names bore grim, macabre testimony to the savage barrenness: Bloody Bush, Foul Bog, Hungry Hill, Wolf Rig, Foul Play. This was No Man’s Land, the oft-disputed, blood-soaked ground that lay between belligerent neighbors.

  “They dinna come this way,” Lang Gib observed, leaning over his horse’s neck to study the rutted road. “There isna any new sheep dung.”

  “Aye.” Will rubbed his cold, nearly numb arms and rose to stretch in his saddle. “I expect they follow the Tyne southward.” His eyes scanned the bleak horizon, then he sat back, shrugging his shoulders to ease them. “We’ve followed long enough to know where they are headed. We’ll cross into Tynedale and await them.”

  “The Devil will take us and we are caught.”

  “The English are saft, Gib—there’s naught out but raiders in this. The warden’ll be hovering o’er his fire, and well ye know it.” Despite the cold, William managed to grin. “But I’d gie him summat to complain of at the next border meeting.”

  “The sun comes up,” Ewan observed uneasily.

  “Aye. We leave the road when we cross into England. Ye said ye knew the land,” Will reminded him.

  The older man nodded.

  “Och, then we’ll fall in behind ye there.”

  There was not much more to be said. For hours they’d ridden the night-shrouded road almost eagerly, every man ready to avenge with an equal savagery the burning of Burwell’s small wooden stockade and tower. And despite Gib’s warning, they knew they had two advantages: They traveled unencumbered by baggage, and they were unexpected. The grim jest among them was that when the English watched for pursuit over their shoulders, they would look the wrong way.

  They proceeded southward also, keeping to the steeper hills, threading their way through moors and gullies until they reached the keeps that faced each other across the arbitrary line England and Scotland currently called “The Border.” With each successive sovereign aggression the castles changed hands, moving from Scotland to England and back again so often that the disputed villeins had little allegiance to either. Whichever way they leaned, they were likely to be burned and murdered by the other side.

  Across the way on the English side, church bells rang, pealing out the last day of Christmas on this, the sixth of January, 1139. The sun shone coldly over the sheep-dotted hills, giving the deceptive impression of peace. For all the barren cragginess that surrounded them, William had to own there was a certain beauty to the land.

  Signaling a halt with his hand he waited for the others to draw up also, then decided, “We wait until they are at Mass to cross. When ’tis seen we are few and do not stop, I doubt we will be pursued. Whilst we tarry here, I’d eat.”

  “We should reach the Rede some five or six leagues eastward, my lord,” Ewan told him, “and ’tis not likely the English will be there before us.”

  “Aye.” William’s eyes took in the seemingly unending hills. “I’d choose a place where we are covered.”

  Lang Gib leaned forward, resting his weary body against his pommel. “Ewan?”

  “When we are beyond the border keeps, there will not be many traveled roads. ’Tis not as the way to Wycklow.” Ewan appeared to ponder what he remembered of the area, then he nodded. “Aye, there are a dozen and more places we could lie in wait.”

  “I’d take the first—I’d nae tarry on English soil any more than I must,” Will murmured. “There’s nae an Englishman as would hae any love for the Butcher’s bastard brother, and we are too few to fight our way all the way back to the border. Besides, I’d nae wait long for the thieves. I’d sleep abed tonight.”

  There was none as disagreed with that, for to a man they were cold and wearied from the sleepless night. But it was a grim business, the meting out of punishment to those who reived across the border, and it was one that they all regarded as justice. An eye for an eye, a keep for a keep, else the English would think them weak.

  As Nib o’ Kinmurrie divided the loaves of bread between them, the church bells fell silent. Tearing off a chunk of his loaf, Will ordered Ewan, “We eat as we ride, then.”

  The sun waxed high ere they’d reached the first place Will considered suitable to an ambush: a long, narrow stretch of road that wended between rocky hills. They took more than a small measure of satisfaction when Ewan announced ’twas between places called “Whip Snag” and “Dead Heath,” for even the names were auspicious for their business. They staked out the high ground and waited, whilst Nib was sent back up the road to watch.

  Despite the rocky, tortuous way they’d come, they had a considerable respite of hours ere Nib returned with word that a band of “murderin’ English” could be seen driving sheep and men before them.

  “How many?”

  “Twenty or more.”

  “How soon?”
<
br />   Nib looked skyward, seeing the winter sun lowering behind clouds that hovered along the western horizon. “Ere dark,” he predicted. “The animals slow them still, for the sheep are falling by the way, but I’d say they come within the hour.”

  Will placed his archers at the narrowest point in the road, ordering them to tighten the springs to their bows and lie down until the prisoners and animals had passed. Only then were they to rise and fire upon the raiders. In the ensuing confusion Lang Gib was to charge from the front, driving animals and men back into another hail of arrows, while William and the others fell upon their rear. There was no consideration that they were outnumbered, for it was the accepted opinion that one good Scots borderer was worth any ten Englishmen when surprised. Besides, if all went as planned, ’twould be like slaughtering beasts for the table.

  The raiders came down the road, still herding tired prisoners and bleating, sore-footed sheep. Many were confident enough that they’d escaped pursuit that their helmets dangled from their saddles. Above the road William’s few archers nocked their arrows and chose their targets carefully, taking aim at those who least expected trouble.

  It was not until the sheep and prisoners were nearly through the narrowest part that William shouted the eerie battle cry of his ancestors. As the reivers looked ahead in surprise, the first arrows flew in their faces. Their apparent leader slumped forward in his saddle, his eye pierced by a steel-tipped shaft. The sheep and cows, frightened by Lang Gib’s shouts as he charged them, stumbled back, effectively blocking escape.

  As the English wheeled to flee William hit them from behind, riding into them, swinging his battle-axe, calling out, “Fight, ye whoreson curs!” As one man hastily jammed on his helmet the Barber caught him below his arm, caving in his ribs and spraying William’s shield. He rose in his saddle, then toppled to the ground, where he was trampled by his own horse.

  Panicked, the English discovered they had nowhere to turn. Those Scots prisoners who could get to them grappled for their weapons, pulling several of the hated enemy down. Horses reared among squalling sheep beneath a new hail of arrows. Men and beasts fell in the fury of the Scots’ onslaught until the first Englishman cried, “Have done! Have done!” as he threw down his mace and shield. It was a futile gesture, for an archer had already marked him, and he too was hit. The arrow struck his throat, cutting short his surrender.

  Those caught in the middle of the dying lost their will to fight and began calling out for mercy. As weapons were dropped and hands raised, the brief but bloody battle ended. And those who had been prisoners but minutes before waded through the tangle of horses and sheep and bodies to wreak their vengeance. Lang Gib threaded his way between them, shouting, “Save them to ransom!” but for a time his words fell on deaf ears. One man, tears streaming down his face, cried back that the murdering English had burned his wife and son. Before any could stop him he swung viciously, nearly decapitating an erstwhile captor with his own discarded weapon. Will rode over to him, wresting the axe from him.

  “Enough! ’Tis enough!”

  Finally there was a sullen calm, marred only by the bleating of the animals and the groans of the dying. Nib and the archers descended to begin stripping the precious mail from the bodies, as Lang Gib counted the cost on both sides. William dismounted to wipe hair, blood, and shattered bone from the Barber’s blade with dead grass. When he looked down, his woolen overtunic clung wetly to his mail where the blood had soaked it. It was then that he realized his shield arm ached.

  “My lord, ye are wounded,” Ewan told him.

  “Aye.”

  Th sleeve of his mail hauberk was rent above his left elbow, and congealing blood still oozed there. In the heat of the melee he’d not even felt the blow. With his right hand he caught at the hem of his tunic and wiped at the wound, revealing a gash of several inches in the flesh.

  “The bone’s intact, so ’twill heal,” he muttered. “I’ll wash it in the river ere we leave.” His gaze traveled to Lang Gib. “How many as survive?”

  “We lost but one dead and two wounded, my lord, and of the men of Burwell, two perished and two are hurt. As to the English, there are but nine as survive. Eight died unshriven, and four I blessed ere they breathed their last,” he reported. “The men of Burwell would that we hanged the rest,” he added.

  “Nay. Tell them I’d ransom them, that Kenneth may rebuild his keep.”

  “They willna like it—most lost someone there.”

  William considered for a moment, then nodded grimly. “Ask them how many died there, then.”

  Gib was gone for a moment to confer with the man Will had disarmed. When he returned he answered, “They say ’twas at least fourteen, mayhap more, as were lost at Burwell to the English. They say they had nae chance, my lord.”

  It was not an easy choice, but William understood the ancient animosity well. He looked to where the prisoners watched, their faces sullen.

  “Then ’twas sixteen in all. Aye. Sixteen in turn is fair enough. Choose the man of Burwell with greatest rank and let him pick four to hang. But tell him to have a care how he does it, for I’d hae him choose those who inflicted the greatest harm. The rest I’d take to Kenneth that he may ask a ransom. And he dies, one more will hang for it.”

  “Aye. And the other dead?”

  “Strip them and leave them for carrion. I’d hae the English know the price we charge for Burwell.”

  He reached to dislodge his helmet, but his injured arm felt weak. Ewan hastened to remove it for him. “My thanks,” he murmured. “Now I’d seek the river. I’d nae go home like this.” He started for his horse, then stopped. “While ye take the clothes and arms, I’d hae ye find a dagger for the boy.”

  The older man’s face broke into a grin. “ ’Tis glad I am ye do it, my lord. ’Tis little enough the puir wee little thing has had, ye know.”

  William shrugged. “It cost me nothing.”

  Ewan watched his master swing up onto his huge horse, and his grin broadened. “Och, and ye think so, do ye?” he asked softly under his breath. “Nay, but he cost ye the thought, and ’tis a beginning, Will o’ Dunashie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The letters blurred before her eyes. She could not think on Father Edmund’s words as he spoke and spelled out Jamie’s lesson. Beside her, her son stared not at the parchment but rather toward the shuttered window, the mulish set of his jaw evident. And every time the priest addressed him he answered reluctantly, unwilling to recite aloud as Edmund had told him to do. Usually she’d take him to task for his manners, but this day she scarce heard the exchange between them. Somewhere her husband traded blows with English raiders, and she knew not if he were injured—or worse. Too many times at Byrum she’d seen men carried home from border skirmishes. Too many times she’d heard Mass for the repose of their souls.

  She’d not returned to her bed after she’d tended Kenneth of Burwell, and already she’d seen to far more than usual. In the absence of her husband she’d meted out the customary Twelfth Day gifts of a gallon of ale and one good loaf of bread to every villein’s hut, and she’d received the good wishes of Blackleith’s people on this, the last day of Christmas. Beyond that there’d been no celebration, the raid at Burwell and the subsequent pursuit having ended any of the planned festivities. Instead, they’d prayed for Kenneth’s recovery at Mass.

  But for all that she’d been busy her thoughts would dwell on William, making the rest seem distant and unreal. Briefly, she bowed her head for possibly the hundredth time since he’d left, praying silently. In the name of Mary and all the saints you hold holy, Father in Heaven, I ask that you keep mine husband safe.

  “For the last time, James, I’d have you read what I have shown you,” Walter spoke impatiently. “And you do it right, you may go.”

  The boy flashed him a look of dislike, then lowered his eyes to the scrap of parchment on which the priest had written. “I dinna want this,” he muttered rebellio
usly, casting a sidewise glance at his mother. When she said nothing he sighed, then began to read the memorized words haltingly, tracing them with his finger, “James of Woolford … born in … England … on April … nine … nineteenth … in the year of our Lord … eleven … hundred and thirty-two.”

  “Which says ‘England’?”

  “This one,” the boy grumbled, pointing to it.

  “Aye. I’d have you copy the whole five times, James, and then I’d see you write your name yet another ten as I have shown you.”

  Again the boy looked to his mother, and then, seeing she did not attend him, he shook his head. “I dinna want this,” he repeated more loudly. “I dinna.”

  Though he could scarce stand Arabella’s hellborn brat, Walter did not want to risk alienating her by striking the child. Swallowing his rising anger at the boy’s obvious sullenness, he reminded him sternly, “ ’Tis six years you have, James, and ’tis time you learned both your letters and your manners.”

  “Nearly seven,” Jamie countered. “And I’d nae be a clerk!”

  Startled from her detached reverie, Arabella turned her attention to her son. “Jamie!”

  “I’d nae do it, Mama!”

  “Your pardon, Father, but he did not sleep enough,” she murmured, embarrassed by the boy’s outburst. “I will see he does the lesson.”

  “Mama!” Jamie’s voice rose indignantly. “I’d nae be a clerk nor a priest!”

  “There’s naught else for you,” Walter snapped, betraying his contempt. Then, lest he offended Arabella, he forced himself to add more kindly, “ ’Tis a waste not to use the good mind God gave you, James.” There. He’d managed to praise the brat somewhat before her.

  “Lord William reads and writes—and ciphers, Jamie,” Arabella said soothingly. Perceiving that he did not believe her, she sought the means to convince him. “He says it means he will not be cheated by the clerks. He says ’tis all he would thank King Henry for—I swear it.”