Divided Souls

by Toby Clements

  ‘So where to now?’ Katherine asks.

  Thomas is finding it hard to concentrate.

  ‘We loop west,’ he says.

  ‘Then come back south, to York? It seems a long way around.’

  Thomas agrees.

  ‘And I’ve been thinking,’ he says.

  ‘About what?’

  He tries to remember what he has been thinking of. Then he does.

  ‘Campbell said Robin of Redesdale was gathering men in the Vale of Mowbray, didn’t he? Which is to the west.’

  He points east. Katherine corrects him, pointing uphill and to the west. The thought of a climb daunts Thomas. He splashes his face with a double handful of the stream’s water but seems to be only hotter for it. He imagines steam rising from his back. He is feeling sluggish and his body radiates heat.

  ‘Are you quite well, Thomas?’ Katherine asks.

  He nods weakly. His head feels stuffed with wool, and it is so hot. Too hot to think. Sweat in his eyes. The land seems to swim.

  ‘William Hastings,’ he says. ‘He will want us to learn something more about this – this Robin of Redesdale, won’t he? What if we could learn his numbers? His whereabouts. Who is with him. That sort of thing.’

  Katherine is still watching him anxiously.

  ‘We might even discover if he has the backing of Warwick,’ Thomas supposes. ‘Such news would be of interest to Hastings, for certain.’

  ‘But if he is gathering men there,’ Katherine says, ‘do we want to be drawn in? You know what it is like with these sorts of armies.’

  ‘We need only ask a few questions. Have a look at them, I mean. See if there are any wearing the Earl of Warwick’s livery, or the Earl of Northumberland’s.’

  He can tell she does not like it. Being anywhere near troops mustering – particularly if they are mustering in rebellion – is hazardous.

  ‘We have to be able to tell him something,’ he says.

  She nods. They mount up in silence, and ride on, westwards now, with the sun beating on their left shoulders, with buzzards high overhead, their cries curiously bleak despite the sun’s heat. The land wavers in a haze of heat and it seems they have been riding all afternoon. The horses are sweating creamy swags. So is he. At length they find the faintest path, and then after a long while during which still not a word is spoken they come to more sheep clustered in the shade of some aspens, and the path becomes clearer, and there are stone walls built up ahead, in good order, and more sheep yet, recently sheared, who look up from their shade, and there is a shearing rack to one side, and it seems they are coming to a village.

  Sure enough, over a rise, below them in the valley they find a scattering of low stone buildings around a stumpy little church, all ringed and ranged about with pens made by the same dry-stone walls. The air wavers in the heat and there are people here, just as there should be: men and women going about their business slowly in the broiling temperature, and they can hear dogs barking lazily, and the sun is so hot. So hot.

  Thomas feels drained, exhausted. He sits slumped in his saddle and he can hardly focus. He can hardly kick on. He wishes he were not carrying Rufus for the boy too is so heavy and hot.

  They ride down. The track swells to become a well-worn thoroughfare. A swineherd sits in the shade of a wall and laughs to see Thomas so sunburned. Dogs bark, but in greeting; however, sitting straight and heeling his horse is all Thomas can manage. They ride into the cool of the shadow of the tower, where pigs lie panting and geese and chickens intermingle, and there is a blue-eyed dog in a chained collar in a pen of his own, who looks at them levelly from behind three bars, just as if he is in the stocks, and Thomas thinks absently that he looks if he is planning some terrible revenge.

  ‘Ale,’ Thomas says.

  There is a brewster, with a broom outside her well-appointed house to show she has ale for sale, and Thomas can hardly swing his leg off his saddle, but the ale is cool and he does not care how much it costs. He drinks three mugs, scarcely pausing. The brewster’s servant is a pretty girl, who also laughs at the redness of Thomas’s skin, but the brewster is more anxious, as is Katherine, and after Thomas has drunk a fourth ale, he tells them he feels steam rising, though he feels better, but then – they stand back – he is doubled over with nausea and he vomits every squirt of ale straight back up and he manages to walk two steps from the vomit before he stumbles and collapses on the ground.

  ‘It is only the heat,’ Katherine tells them.

  Thomas is made to lie outside in a patch of shade thrown by the high stone walls of the brewster’s husband’s surprisingly large and comfortable hall. Thomas is hatless, wearing only his hose, shirt rolled up and pourpoint untied, and he is dark and glossy with the sweat that seems to pour off his blistered skin. He has his bare feet in a bucket of cold water, and there is more ale at his side, a large jug of it, though Thomas will not touch it, in case he throws it up again.

  The brewster – Goodwife Watkins – and her husband stand off, eyeing him anxiously. Her husband, John Watkins, is unexpected, and not the sort of man Katherine would imagine to own so much land. He is maybe nearly forty, big, running to fat, with a blotchy face and a scar on his jaw that runs dead straight, hard-edged and livid, through his whiskers. If she did not know he owned this hall and all this land, she would assume he was a churl, but there he is, in a snug-fitting velvet jacket that must have been made for him when he was younger.

  ‘Up to me, I’d never let him in,’ Watkins barks.

  But it is Goodwife Watkins who makes these sorts of decisions, while Watkins drinks and looks on through eyes like a pig.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Goodwife Watkins asks.

  ‘Bloody well better be,’ Watkins interrupts. ‘I’ll not have him die in my house.’

  Katherine asks if they might have a mattress for him and the servants bring out a straw mattress and set it down by the unlit fire in the stone chimney. They will not assist when Katherine helps Thomas to his feet and into the hall. They are too anxious. Who knows what this sickness is? They agree with their master: they should never have let him into the yard, let alone the house. Rufus watches, mute and anxious again. She gives him a smile.

  ‘He will be well in the morning,’ she says.

  She lies Thomas down. His eyes are open, and he is able to thank her.

  Sorry,’ he says.

  ‘It is nothing. Not your fault. The sun. Come, close your eyes. Sleep.’

  Rufus says his prayers, and then lies beside Thomas, a little way off, because, as he says, his father is too hot tonight. She kisses Rufus and strokes his forehead. In a moment, he, too, is asleep, and she blesses him and goes to a stool at the board, where she is to eat with Watkins and his wife, and she is suddenly starving, despite the heat.

  Goodwife Watkins is a plain, pious soul who, like her husband, seems out of place in such a fine hall. She takes her time over prayers before supper, but Watkins himself is less careful, and when the food is brought – a duck, roasted and glazed with the spiced jam of red fruit, and a dish of greens and eggs – he is quick to serve himself, and spoons his food into his mouth as if he has been ploughing all day. He drinks like that, too, and after he has drunk enough ale he turns to her, and she sees that he is shy of her.

  ‘So what brings you and himself there to our parts?’ he demands, not looking her in the eye but reaching for some milk and almond dish.

  Katherine can see no reason not to tell him the truth.

  ‘Disappointment, really,’ she says. ‘We hoped for a position a little south of here, but – but it was not to be.’

  Watkins grunts.

  ‘And so you are riding around to see what opportunities the Lord thrusts your way?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she agrees.

  He grunts and drinks more. She wonders what else there is to say. Then she supposes Watkins might know something useful of this Robin of Redesdale.

  ‘Though we seem to have picked the wrong season for
it?’ she probes.

  ‘Aye,’ Watkins says. ‘You can say that two times.’

  He eats his pudding, drinks more ale, his face hidden by his mug, but she can see his piggy little eyes blinking. Perhaps you do not talk of such things at supper? And yet Sir John always did. Or maybe because she is a woman? So she carries on.

  ‘We heard men are gathering under the banner of the old King?’

  Watkins puts his mug down. He looks at his wife, who tips her head, as if to say: Talk to her.

  ‘Oh aye,’ Watkins mutters. ‘Robin of bloody Redesdale. Only he’s not raising his banner for old King Henry, is he? He’s raising it for the Earl of Warwick. He’s a cousin of his or sommat, put up there in the wind like a bowman’s finger, to test which way the Earl of Northumberland’ll jump if Warwick comes out in rebellion against King Edward.’

  ‘But Warwick and Northumberland are brothers, aren’t they?’ she asks. ‘Surely a brother would always come out in favour of a brother?’

  Watkins taps his nose.

  ‘You’d think,’ he answers, ‘but the Earl of Northumberland owes King Edward dear, doesn’t he? It were King Edward who raised him up so high.’

  ‘But wouldn’t Warwick make him something even greater, if he were to join him?’

  Watkins ponders this.

  ‘There’s nowt much greater Warwick could offer him,’ he says after a moment. ‘Or that he’d want. Being Earl of Northumberland is everything up here, you know? And I know what he’s like, from when he was Lord Montagu, see? I served under him for five years, a while ago now, and I’ll tell you what he’s like: he’s like Carlisle. Ever been to Carlisle? No? Well, bloody well don’t. But that’s what he’s like. Like bloody Carlisle.’

  Katherine has no idea what this grudging praise means. Watkins takes another long draught of ale.

  ‘So he won’t join Warwick?’ she prods.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Watkins tells her.

  ‘So he will?’

  ‘Didn’t say that neither.’

  She tries another track.

  ‘And how many men has he?’ she tries. ‘This Redesdale?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Watkins snaps. ‘Who are you? Some sort of spy or something?’

  ‘Husband!’ Goodwife Watkins snaps.

  ‘I am not, I assure you,’ Katherine lies. ‘I am just – anxious that my husband is not to be caught up in any – any fighting.’

  Watkins bangs his fist down.

  ‘Oh, we’re all anxious about that!’ he says. ‘While this bloody Robin of bloody Redesdale is pissing about playing silly bastards, every man around here will be rushing to his colours for the chance of some fun and bloody games down south, won’t he? And so the bloody harvest won’t be taken in, will it? And I’ll have to pay double – double, d’you hear? – to get anyone with fingers enough to shear a single one of my bloody sheep! That is what I am anxious about!’

  He lapses into silence and the servant comes again with some sweet cake and another jug of ale. Katherine can think of nothing to say. She wishes they would all go to bed, but the candles – three of them – are lit and Watkins calls for the fire to be lit as well and then he goes outside, unsteady on his feet, to relieve himself.

  ‘He is out of temper,’ Goodwife Watkins says. ‘We have already lost men to Redesdale. They seem to be flocking to him. His colours, I mean. From far and wide. They say there are thousands of men in the Vale of Mowbray, all just awaiting the word.’

  ‘Thousands?’

  ‘Oh yes, I should say. It is a shame we are so far out of the way, or I’d be selling my ale by the tun.’ She laughs, sadly. ‘Anyway,’ she continues. ‘Never mind old Watkins. His bark is worse than his bite. But the thing is, he feels it, you see? He was with Lord Montagu’s men up north. It is how he got his chin.’ She traces her husband’s scar on her own chin.

  Katherine tells her she should not have asked so many questions.

  ‘Oh no,’ Goodwife Watkins says. ‘He likes to talk.’

  They both smile. Thomas starts coughing. Katherine goes over to him. He lies stunned, unconscious to everything, panting like a dog in the heat. She moistens his lips with ale. His licks it off and so she sits him up and makes him drink. He is a dead weight. His eyes roll to awareness though, and he drinks.

  ‘Bless you,’ he croaks.

  She smiles and lays him back down. He shuts his eyes and is back asleep before Watkins returns to turn his chair to face the fire. He seems calmer than before, as if the act has soothed him, and his accent, wavering before supper, seems to have settled into the coarse, honest groove of his youth.

  ‘I tell you this,’ he says, ‘I hope Northumberland doesn’t fall for Redesdale’s trick.’

  There is a spin on his words, as if he wants her to ask more.

  ‘Why not?’ she asks.

  ‘Why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because I am still indentured to the old bastard, aren’t I? I’ve got his bloody jacket somewhere, if the mice haven’t had it, from the last time I was out in the field with him.’

  He strokes the bristles on his chin and it is possible to see in the glaze on his eyes that he is away.

  ‘It was where I got this. It’s a scratch, I know, nowt but a nick – though by Christ, it pissed blood, pardon my tongue.’

  ‘Oh, John, do not go on. Goodwife Everingham does not want to hear your old stories.’

  ‘No,’ Katherine says. ‘I do.’

  Watkins does not heed the exchange.

  ‘It was a big lad who did it,’ he says. ‘Handy with his fists in a tavern, I’d vow, but we were in a coal mine, weren’t we? Can you believe? A bloody coal mine. It was back in sixty-four, after the battle of Hexham. Ever hear of it?’

  Katherine nods. She remembers Hexham, and how she ran with Thomas from the rout, and how she was sicker than she had ever been before or since.

  ‘It was afterwards, though,’ Watkins goes on. ‘When we were out riding down Somerset’s runaways – and by God there were enough o’ them – and we were on the trail of a party of horsemen, up in Tynedale, in the forest there. Further north.’

  He gestures, and she imagines she knows those woods. Perhaps they were those they had had to ride through themselves after they’d run from Hexham that day? Thomas would know, but he sleeps, his breathing a regular haul. Strange to think Watkins might have been trying to ride them down.

  ‘We followed ’em through endless bloody trees,’ Watkins continues, ‘with endless bloody leaves, and they never thought to hide their tracks, did they? It was like we were following a team of oxen and a bloody plough. So it weren’t hard, and they went slow because they were so encumbered.’

  He rolls out the odd word ‘encumbered’ as if he only uses it for best, perhaps only when he’s telling this story. Goodwife Watkins sighs as if she’s heard it a thousand times, resting her head on her hand, her elbow on the board.

  ‘So we come up on them,’ Watkins continues, ‘and they’re stood around in the middle of a clearing, arguing about something, and there’s a nob who’s shouting at the others as is always the bloody case, telling them this and that – and there are about ten of them, all gathered there with their horses and they’ve got a line of mules with them, haven’t they?’

  He is reliving it as it happens, but breaks off to take a drink, his eyes wet with some feeling – shame? Remorse? She cannot tell.

  ‘Now,’ he resumes, ‘because the nob is shouting so much and they’re shouting back, we’ve got time, so we surround them, and then we come at them and catch them unawares. We lost a couple of men in the fight, God rest them, but we killed them all. Or so we thought. But when it was done, and all these bodies were lying around, we thought: That’s odd. The mules aren’t encumbered any more, are they? And where’s that nob gone?’

  ‘A mystery,’ Goodwife Watkins murmurs.

  ‘Aye,’ Watkins agrees. ‘Only then we see these tracks going into what looks like some sort o’ cave, but one of the lads says it
’s a coal pit, and so we know we’ve got him, and whatever the mules were carrying.’

  ‘What were they carrying?’ Katherine asks.

  He holds up a fat palm.

  ‘All in good time,’ he says, and takes another drink. ‘We start shouting at him to come out, but he won’t, will he? He knows what’s waiting. So we have to go in. Now. No one wants to go, so we must draw straws. And who should draw the shortest?’

  He indicates himself.

  ‘So I must go first. Quick prayer to St Barbara who someone says is the saint them that mine coal pray to, and in I go, hands and knees. It is not quite dark as pitch, as there’s a light – a hole in the roof of the cave, thank God, or St Barbara, take your pick – but before I can see anything, I see this shape, don’t I? Coming at me with a billhook, shouting and screaming and all sorts. But his weapon catches on something, or the Lord in His merciful wisdom diverts it, and the blade goes like this . . .’ He draws a finger along the line of his chin.

  ‘A miracle,’ his wife intones.

  He glances at her before taking up the story again.

  ‘Now: I’ve got a ballock dagger,’ he says, ‘and in a space like that – a coal mine, remember – well, there isn’t much better than a ballock dagger, I can tell you, because by my Christ I made sure of him. I must have stabbed him a hundred times. A thousand. I was that scared.’

  He needs another drink.

  ‘When it was over, I looked up, and I could see there was one more of them, hiding in the cave. His face was in that pool of light from above and I knew right away that this was the nob, the man who’d been leading the party, the one who’d been shouting, and I thought: Oh Christ, he will kill me now, because you know what them sort are like. They practise their fighting all day. And so I was about to call out for help from the others, when he just – yields. Just like that. Doesn’t put up any fight at all.

  ‘So I tell him to come out and he does. And then when he is past me, and into the fresh air of the clearing again, he stands there, surrounded by men who’d chop him down as soon as look at him, and he demands – you know what they are like – he demands to be taken to see Lord Montagu, that instant. So we ask him who he is and he tells us he is Sir William Tailboys. Ever heard of him?’