Fair Helen

by Andrew Greig

  Janet and Dand went to their quarters, making hungry eyes at each other. In the kitchen, Mrs. Smeaton boiled eggs and we sat at the long table and broke open warm bread and drank small beer. Pot-boy Alec—an orphaned distant relative, I discovered—glanced at Marie the serving girl, who blushed, eyes shining with admiration. Mrs. Smeaton piled my plate with cold chicken and pickles. “For a growing laddie,” she said.

  “I’m growing wider here, but no taller,” I replied, but did not spare the chicken, bread and eggs.

  I watched Jed, one great paw wrapped round his tankard, the other lying loose and easy on the table as if it had never killed a man. Snood had returned to impenetrable silence, staring vacantly at the table like a bull at pasture. Alec and Marie found reasons to work near each other, giggling and glancing among the pots and dishes.

  I wondered what was passing now between Janet Elliot and her husband. I expected they would emerge hours later, soft-dazed, replete.

  It would be better, I decided, to tackle them both separately, when it came to attempting to nudge them away from the Maxwells toward a new alignment, one more suitable both to my patron’s wishes and my own judgement.

  Outside the wind still roared insanely, like Earl Bothwell chained in darkness beneath Dragsholm. I poured another small beer from the brown jug, helped myself to preserve tart that had just appeared on the table, as though that could make me a bigger man. I was in no hurry to leave that warm kitchen. For a wee while life had been simple.

  I got to my feet. Back to business.

  I found Adam in the peel tower, up among the doos, stroking a fine white one in its cage. For a man about to go into the woods to inspect fallen timber, he looked sprush—second-best britches, a hoop-fastened doublet, kerchief knotted casually about the throat.

  “So,” I said cheerily, “still thinking of eloping?”

  He smiled beatifically as he withdrew his hand from the bird, carefully closed the door. “You know her family have been in Annandale since long afore the Bruces?”

  “Will mentions it most mornings, then Aunt Ann takes up the theme.”

  “And that they hid him a whole winter through?”

  When Helen and I were weans, many a time we went downstream, loosed the rope of ivy and, hearts pounding, lowered ourselves down the cliff to the hidden door.

  “Surely Bruce’s cave would be safer for trysting than Kirkconnel kirk.”

  A stifled giggle. I looked at him.

  “It is handy enough in a shower,” he confessed. “But not the most comfortable, and a bit far off.”

  “Is there any place in the valley where you two haven’t—”

  He held up his hand.

  “Yon’s my intended bride. Best not think on it too close.”

  I looked away. It had been near-sacred in that cave, dim light through the concealed entrance, the burn rushing below, as Helen and I sat on bundled windlestraw and shared our innermost hearts.

  “The vestry key,” I asked. “How came you by that?”

  Adam rolled back on his pallet and lay idly picking plaster from the crumbling wall, a daft fond smile on his face. He told me that some months ago Helen had left from visiting her cousins at Springkell and, troubled in her heart, walked through drizzle to the Kirkconnel kirk. She had sat in her family’s mildewed box-pew in the ruinous nave, among the rot and puddles, with the stink of doos for incense.

  “Generations of her people are in the crypt there,” Adam said. “Mine too, though maybe not as long.”

  I leaned up against the wall, thinking about Lucretius, how even families do not last. Mine certainly hadn’t.

  He shrugged. “Then the door creaked. She nearly jumped from her skin. It was Father Alexander—you’ll mind him from the Armstrong wedding?”

  I nodded. A thin-faced, haunted man. “And your mother’s.”

  He grimaced.

  “Aye, that too. Anyway, the old priest settles beside her, and they sit there saying nothing, wi’ the rain drifting down through the roof. Then he tells her he has been ordained for thirty-nine years, and only for the first two had he kirk and congregation.”

  “He could have joined the Reform, like many others.”

  “That’s what Helen said—to him who had sprinkled water at her baptism! Apparently he spat on the floor, then talked about living pillar to post, humping the sacraments from door to door like a hawker. Eating in the pantry, pastry and cooking oil on his fingers as he absolved the dying, then sneaking out the back as the minister came in the front . . .”

  We sat in the chill dimness among the pigeons, thinking about pretence, secrecy, a lifetime’s dedication to a lost cause.

  “Not a happy ecclesiastic, then.”

  Adam grinned. “He admitted it had kept him from flummery and vanity.”

  “Sounds like a Protestant!”

  Our laughter echoed round the stone walls.

  “Then he said he believed she was in love. She admitted it.” Adam smiled. “She said it was a painful and wonderful thing, but meeting was difficult, especially now the rains had come. Then the priest was silent. Apparently he muttered, I remember it so.”

  “So priests have burned for love as well as their Church.”

  “Then he puts his hand on hers, not at all lasciviously, and presses something long and cold into her palm. And they look at each other. And he says, If you can make your trysting over to God, so much the better. Then he departs, and my beloved is left sitting with the key to the upper hall.” Adam chuckled. “And you wonder why I stay with the Old Faith!”

  “I expect he did it to get back at the minister,” I said.

  “You remain a godless heathen?”

  It was not something we had talked about for years. In those times—as in these—it was unfriendly to enquire about such matters, and unwise to believe any answer. I stood at the window, looked out at the rain streaking down towards the sod, the stub of a rainbow above the Roman camp, and the faint outline of hills massed across the shining Solway.

  “An incredulous one,” I said. “I think plans for her engagement advance.”

  A flurry behind me, then his hands dug into my shoulder.

  “Once we are secretly married, they will all have accept it!” His eyes sparked like chapped flints. “We may return. Or make our life in the Continent.”

  I suggested he read too many romantic ballads. Cut himself off from his own family, and from hers—madness! Besides, she would never agree to it. Or perhaps he considered binding her to his horse and galloping into the sunset? And Robert Bell: would he evaporate like morning dew?

  “Fuck off back to Embra,” was his helpful response.

  “I’ll do just that, for all the good I do here!” I cried, headed for the door.

  “Harry?”

  He looked across the stinking doo-cot at me.

  “Thank you for coming when I wrote you.” His voice was soft in the throat. “I can see I have taken you away from your post for too long.”

  He stood with the doos at his back, tall and lean, still young. Through the window slits, daylight ate his lovely cheekbones.

  “I’ll bide a whilie yet,” I conceded.

  He bit his lip, nodded. “Thank you. But I have asked too much of you in this. I must decide myself what to do for the best.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I replied, and dodged a fistful of doo-dung thrown at me. But at least he laughed.

  I was not laughing on my way down the stair. I admired my friend’s spirit, but not his judgement.

  Woods

  I have spent half the morn—a wind-polished dot of a day among Eternity—staring at the back of my good hand. Not that good, as it happens. It has done things I wince to remember even as I set them down here.

  (It has also done things that must be accounted good—in its caresses, in having been offered in aid and friendship, and clasping another’s in the same spirit.)

  Materially, as morally, it is not in the best of condition, as one
might expect after near seventy winters. The knuckles have swollen, the sinews stiffened till it is more bird-claw than hand. Each morning I rub it with ointment and ease the fingers straight against my chest before gripping them around this quill. The skin is spotted like autumn leaves, ridged and pale and so thin I see the blue rivers of blood that run beneath.

  A few nicks and gouges mark the back. I turn it over. This pale scar across my palm was not, I regret to say, incised in a fight to save a lady’s honour or even my own skin. I ripped it on a nail on the back of a stable door, on a wild morning much like this one, as a peel-tower door opened and I hastened forward from my lurking-place, looking for words that might forestall my friend and prolong his life, and hers.

  As I ran cursing across the compound to get something for my bleeding hand, I could see Adam’s head and shoulders disappear down the brae towards the Kirtle woods. Perhaps he had not heard my call above the wind. Perhaps he had. He had not taken Philby, he had pulled a half-cloak about that fancy doublet, wore his best boots. Something was definitely up. No sign of Jed shadowing him, so it was down to me.

  I sluiced my hand in the scullery, then wrapped a rag tight around it while Mrs. Smeaton tutted and tried to feed me biscuits. The bandage had bloomed red again by the time I had pulled my leather jerkin over a couple of shirts, snuggled my weapon in under my ribs, grabbed a bonnet and passed through the gate, licking away the last sweet crumbs.

  No sight of Adam, but muddy prints were clear on the path into the mangled woods. I followed on, ducking under uprooted trees, clambering over torn-off boughs. The great gale had stripped the hardwood trees, left them exposed as my conscience.

  Where the path divided in the wood—down towards Kirkconnel one way, the upper track to Bonshaw Tower on the other—I hunkered down to closer look. The mud was churned with boot heels, and a slide-mark on the bank. It took no sleuth-hound to see he was heading for the river.

  Fitting my feet to his prints, allowing for his longer legs, I also jaloused he was in no hurry. At certain places he seemed to have stopped, the prints facing in various directions. Perhaps he had indeed come to inspect the damage to the woods.

  Still, it was unlike him not to bring Philby. And he had left the tower so quick and quiet, even Jed had missed him. If I had not been in the stables attending to Handsome Jenny—she had been hard worked—I too would have missed him.

  The track dipped towards the Kirtle. I hurried on through the wood, as fast and silent as possible amid the damage.

  The crack came from behind, very close. I turned, hand reaching under my shirt. He was standing not five feet away, one hand on his sword, the other on the branch he had just broken. Smiling and serious both.

  “Still a city boy,” he said. “I could have broken your head as you passed.”

  “That is what I need to talk to you about.”

  He laughed quietly, came to me. His hand on my arm.

  “About cracking your head?”

  “About things I have learned in the city.”

  He studied me. Hazel-grey eyes looked into my innermost self.

  “I had wondered when you’d tell me,” he said.

  I smiled, though my heart was rattling like a snare-drum. We crouched in ahint a fresh-uprooted beech, our backs protected, the burn close by and a clear view back up the path. He glanced at my bandaged hand.

  “Did you and Jed get carried away at your lessons?”

  “Nail in the stables,” I said.

  “My mother will take care of it,” he said. “She is a grand healer.”

  His voice was briefly tender. When I first visited the Fleming household as a student, I had noted how she hung upon him, how close they were with shared jokes and smiles and touches. My own mother had loved me in a brisk, busy, cheerful way.

  Then his mouth twitched and he went back to restlessly scanning the woods around us.

  “So,” he said. “What have you to say to me? Speak saft,” he cautioned.

  Was he really in danger on his own estate? Had it come to this, or was it only of his mind? And yet, away from the confines of the tower and the family, perhaps he would listen to reason.

  I gave him reason.

  I told him that he and his family would do better to ally with Buccleuch, not Maxwell. Certainly not Earl Angus, nor Johnstone.

  He removed his arm from my knee, glanced behind us. As he spoke, he kept scanning the trees.

  “Lord Maxwell is aristocracy, the Buccleuchs are just new gentry. The boy is growing fast and will soon take charge.”

  “I have heard Buccleuch is the coming man. He has the King’s ear. They are in accord.”

  “He has been banished twice, imprisoned by both Crowns.”

  “And he always comes back stronger.” Adam was silent. “Use your eyes,” I said. “Who has the sharpest understanding among all these?”

  “My grandfather and my father were aye Maxwell men,” he said stubbornly.

  “And where did it get them? Your family are still unmade.”

  “We are no longer at feud with the Irvines,” he muttered. “That must change everything. Did I say our families are feasting together next week?”

  “Nobody told me.” He was right: it did change things. “Still, Buccleuch is the coming man. Johnstone is but a bandit knighted. Scott will do down Maxwell.”

  “Lord Maxwell has many more men, as do the Johnstones.”

  “And lost half of them at Dryfe Sands. Man, follow the brains! Last week’s hot-trod—was that not ill-considered? Lord Angus will revert to popery sooner or later. Only Buccleuch is in accord with Jamie Saxt and the way things must go. These others are just grabbing what they can in the last days.”

  He glanced at me, his eyes very sharp. I had not meant to grow so heated.

  “Since when did you move in such circles, Harry?” I said nothing. “Who have you being talking to?”

  I shrugged. “I hear gossip from the Castalian Band. My Justice is close to the Court. I write and deliver his notes. I hear the clash and use my eyes.”

  “I bet you do.”

  I said nothing. Any further argument and he would dig in and never be shifted. He reached out his dagger, sclaffed the point in the dirt as he considered.

  “I have no strong lealty to Maxwell,” he admitted. “You met Buccleuch, didn’t you?”

  “At that Armstong wedding.”

  He nodded. “Took a shine to you, I’d say.” He turned his grey-green eyes on me. We looked at each other. Then he sighed and leaned back, wiping dirt along the blade till it shone brighter.

  “Were I to incline towards Scott of Branxholme, you would let him know it?”

  I tried to appear suitably amused at the idea, and succeeded because I was entertained by his preference for referring to Scott with a caustic Branxholme. Delicious hint of snobbery from one small Borders gentry towards another that had once been even smaller!

  “I could by way of gossip, in a letter to Fowler say, or when next in Embra, mention your inclination to one of the senior clerks who is Buccleuch’s nephew.”

  “Mon Dieu, wee Harry Langton the conspirator!”

  “And your friend,” I reminded him.

  “Yes,” he said, and glanced at me almost shyly. “I have treated you poorly, and you have repaid my whining and haivering with loyal commonsense. I do not deserve you, Harry.” His arm around my shoulder, grinning again. “When you have schemed me a dukedom, I shall have you made a lord!”

  “I am a humble man and will settle for a knighthood.”

  “Sir Harry of Humble! Very good.”

  He leaned back against the fallen trunk, all doubt and suspicion gone. My friend was clever and quick, but he had no guile. A mere mouse running before the coulter blade, I had nothing on my side but guile. At such moments I sickened myself. Yet I still hoped both to satisfy Buccleuch and keep safe the only friends of my heart.

  He chuckled quietly, his mood changing again. “I wish you luck in getting this past my mothe
r.”

  “Surely it is the heidsman needs convinced.”

  “She leads Dand as one leads a bull by the ring.” His laugh was scarcely such. “Only it is not attached to his nose.”

  “Yeuch,” I said.

  “Yeuch indeed, mon ami.” He got to his feet, still scanning. “I will give some thought to what you say. But I am not heidsman, nor will be for many a year—if Dand or whoever it is doesn’t do for me first—so it is hard to see my allegiance matters much.”

  “I am only thinking of your family’s advantage,” I said. He was flexing his knees, sniffing the air like an eager dog. I was losing him. “But—”

  “I will walk the woods as far as Kirkconnel,” he announced. He glanced up at the faint sun, then smiled on me. “You should go back to the house and get my mother to attend to that wound.”

  “I will come with you a bit way.”

  He shrugged. “If you must.”

  We wandered through the woodland, following the Kirtle burn. The wind was still high and we kept a wary eye on the branches overhead. The woods bore pale scars of split boughs, we smelled the sap that had been hidden way inside. Where soil was shallow, a great elm had ripped from the earth and in its fall brought down three smaller pines, and crushed a little rowan to pulp.

  We gazed at it together in silence.

  “A lesson there,” I said.

  “Indeed—we will stay warm this winter and the next.”

  “I thought next winter you expect to be walking by the Arno, living on nothing and happily disgraced with your young bride.”

  “Sounds good enough to me.”

  I sighed. “You intend to take her by force?”

  “Awa tae fuck.”

  “So she has consented to this elopement?”

  We were facing each other. He pulled off his bonnet, shook loose his hair.

  “You’ve not been in love, Harry, have you?”

  “Has she consented?” His silence pushed me on. “To anything at all?”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “We know we need to resolve this, but when we are together we keep getting . . . distracted. And then she must leave.”