Fair Helen

by Andrew Greig

  Here all about lay Scotland, dark and dreich and dear. Cloud-shadow scurrying over hill and burn, cold wind and dry branch, our hard humour and hidden hurts. Here affection came wrapped in insult as sweet fruit is in burnt pie-crust, tenderness was hidden under armoured jacks, with only keening pipes and fiddle and human voice to tell the heart’s ways.

  How could I stay in such a place? How could I leave it?

  Then of itself my mind cleared, as though upon this height I was above the cloud and could see what had been going on down there.

  After all, Cui bono?

  Rusby was dead and Jed in the gaol. Rob Bell’s best swordsman, and Adam’s shield, were both off the chessboard spread out below me.

  Who benefits? One who wishes neither man well.

  What has changed? Neither is now close-guarded.

  To what end? That both should come to harm.

  By what means? What indeed?

  Or perhaps it meant nothing, for who could have foreseen how that scene on the steps of the Scabby Duck would play out? There had been too many uncertainties to control the outcome.

  Rob Bell had no need to kill Adam, apart from not liking him, which for Bell might be reason enough. But he had already won Helen. He was in tight with Earl Angus. He would be joined with the Irvines. The Irvines had ended their blood feud with the Flemings, who for now at least remained sworn to Lord Maxwell. How would any of these gain by Adam’s death, or Jed’s?

  Who had set John Rusby on, by what means, to what purpose?

  I ran through the folk at the feast, all the faces. Will, Dand, William Douglas. Rusby off to the side, glaring at Jed who stared him back. Crosier the saddler—what was he doing there?—unloading provisions, managing the carts and harness for Elenora, who had been too rushed to look at me straight, her hands quick and deft among bottles and cheeses. Dowie Fairfax in the shadow of the courtyard eaves when it was done, intrigued, not displeased. Who benefits?

  Once you discern the shape among the shrubbery, it is clear what manner of beast you have been looking at all the while. I set off back at a fair lick, all the way to Kirtlebridge.

  I found her alone in the yard, staring at a muckle heap of empty bottles.

  “Mistress mine.”

  She turned and tried to look at me, but her eyes were weighted to the ground.

  “You must be right glad to see John Rusby dead,” I said. “He was more of a thorn than you let on.”

  The wind dunted her bonnie yellow headpiece as she nodded.

  “How did you do it? Why?”

  She tried to stare me out, but her head kept turning away.

  “Best come awa in, my lad,” she said at last.

  “Is it safe in there?” Her head came up then. I swear her hand flexed to strike me, and I stood back a pace. “Just asking.”

  We went to her back room. She barred the door, but there would be nae houghmagandie, no bareback carry-on this time.

  “Who directed you, Elenora? Was it Fairfax?”

  She turned away from the window that looked onto the road.

  “Not everything is a plot, Harry. Some things just . . . occur.”

  I acquiesced. Then pressed the point.

  “So what just occurred?”

  As she looked at me, into the silence came hooves. She jerked round, looked out. A lone horseman came slowly by on the Lockerbie road. I did not know him. He rode on by, singing.

  It came about the Lammas-tide

  When night are lang and mirk.

  Her three sons came to the door

  And their hats were o’ the birk . . .

  Her shoulders dropped and she turned back to me.

  “I set Rusby on,” she said. “He was pressing me sair. I said he couldna have me. He said, Why for no?” She paused, and for the first time she looked me in the eye. “I tellt him, Master Horsburgh is why for no.”

  “Why name Jed?”

  She glanced again to the window. I wondered whom she was expecting, or dreading.

  “I didn’t want you hurt. Anyhow, he wouldna hae taken you seriously.”

  I was hurt, but she had a point.

  “So you set Rusby on Jed?”

  “I wanted that man aff me! Canna bear him.”

  “Well, you’ll not have to now.”

  She nodded sombrely. “I thocht Jed could look after himself.”

  “Rusby near killed Adam while he was at it.”

  “So I heard, and I am sorry at that.”

  It had been a desperate woman improvising, no conspiracy. I put my arm about her shoulder, more brother than lover.

  “And Fairfax?”

  I felt the shake pass through her again.

  “He must hae his share of me.”

  A Lang-wake Litany

  I lay long awake last night, disturbed by the day’s writing. The creusie flickered, yet but made darkness more apparent. I did as I often do on such nuits blanches, and took the ride from Embra to Nether Albie as I once knew it lang syne, seeing in turn each burn, brig and carlin’ crossroad, and murmured aloud to the dark a prayer of sorts: Blackford, Gilmerton, dell of Auchendinny, then by Howgate, Milton, the Leadburn Inn. A dank nameless wood, then Mendick muir, grey Wether Law. The Lamancha bogs, the brigs at Romanno, Lynn, fair Blyth. Saddle sore to Broughton, good wine, poor food, sleep waits there.

  Not asleep yet?

  O’er cleuch and dene, brig and ford, brae and dell, knowe, gill and haugh. Kestrel and peewit, dire hoodie craw. Tweedsmuir aye in rain. The climb to Crook where a chiel once brought me milk and oatcake. Linkumdoddie, that lonely shieling. Hard going, then all Annandale spread green to Solway, faint massed Lakeland hills. On by shieling, smithy, cot and inn, by broken tower, burnt manor, to pasture of gimmer, cob and kye.

  Who truly wants to sleep, minding o’ this?

  Moffat, the Dryfe Water, Willie’s Cleuch and Kitty’s Cairn. Across Winterhope, Setthorns and Kirtleton, and now familiar lands, the high woods above the Kirtle, disused mill by Drowncowsike, then last ford afore Between the Waters. Up the cleuch, woodsmoke, peel tower, then beat upon the gates of Nether Albie.

  And should I get to the end still awake, there are loved faces waiting there.

  Strong Box

  I rode through the gate of Nether Albie, by habit checking for Jed coming from his hut with an insult and hint of smile in that battered face. When I stalled Handsome Jenny, there was no sly Watt in the shadows.

  I crossed the yard, wondering if Janet Elliot was watching, and found the peel-tower door unbarred for the first time since my arrival. I went up the dark grey twist of stair, for once not stumbling on the trip-step. The door was open onto an empty room. No pallet-bed, no lurcher, no moody heir nursing dark thoughts, only an odour of man and dog and sweat. Someone had taken a beesom to the floor, and the room was clean and empty save for a row of shiny-tipped pikes held in brackets on the far wall.

  I went to the door, had a listen and keek up the stair. Only the genteel murmur of the cushie doos in the pigeon loft. So I knelt at the pillar-bulge, and with a pike-blade prised out the stone third up from the floor.

  The hidey-hole was empty. Adam had moved his strong box.

  I replaced the stone, checked its alignment, dusted down my hands and left the tower.

  At the kitchen table I scoffed dried-out pheasant pie left from dinner. Mrs. Smeaton had put her feet up and was snoring in her chair in the neuk. Alec and Marie giggled and nudged as they finished cleaning up, then they slipped off into the scullery to carry on. I heard the lock turn over very quietly.

  So life birls on.

  I licked my fingers, dabbed up the last of the pastry crumbs while picking over leftover fragments of conversations. I remembered Buccleuch asking how come Dand had survived the hot-trod ambush, how he had reclasped his hands before looking up and asking me to continue my account. Was that when he recast his plans? At the time I had been too preoccupied with getting out of my interview alive, but now I believed something had shifted at
that moment.

  I thought too on Mistress Jarvis and what she was prepared to do to stay siccar. Rusby she disliked, detested maybe, but Dowie Fairfax brought a look to her I had not seen before. The way she shrank then yielded when his arm came round her, her false smile when she bade him farewell and come-by-soon.

  He alone frightened her. She would oblige him if he had asked for the clash and gossip of the district, for instance the trysting of Fair Helen. And that information could have passed to Robert Bell, and thus their assault on me that first night. But Fairfax was the servant of many masters, and I had glimpsed him at Crichton . . .

  Like a hen, I fixed my eyes on nothing and tried to pick it up. I sensed I was near getting it.

  I could rely on Elenora to do whatever she felt she had to. Which of us does not? She had more brains and smeddum than most, and her necessities, which might include betraying her gossip-merchant, sparring partner and occasional bed-companion, moi.

  I got up, sighed as an old man does at having changed position. I looked round that warm kitchen, the hanging brass and iron, ashets and bowls, jugs and scrubbed surfaces. Mrs. Smeaton with mouth open and big red hands open wearily on her lap. This was the one place I felt at ease in that household, and I would soon be leaving.

  I closed the door quietly behind me and went on up the stair to find my friend, that I might better know his heart and better report on him.

  What is to be done wi’ the likes of us, shoogling along atween muir and sky, trying to be true while fighting to stay alive a day longer?

  I found Adam in his room, writing at the table. He looked up, blotted, then quickly folded the paper to a mail packet. Two other letters lay on the desk, sealed with his stamp. I noted one had an address in Carlisle, the other London.

  I looked at him; he looked me back. Gave a wee smile then scooped the three letters into his coat pocket. I could feel his high spirits, animated as a sleuth-hound on its scent, all lounging and scratching done.

  “I maun go see our Jed in the gaol the morn,” he said. “You want to come?”

  I hesitated, for I had a report to write and pass to Crosier.

  “Of course. Jed would not want you to ride alone, so you can make do wi’ me.”

  He laughed. “I feel siccar wi’ you at my back. You’ve turned into a right wee thug.”

  He grasped my shoulder, looked into my eye. His were shining. He was filled to bursting.

  “Thank you for everything,” he said, and turned for the door.

  “It has been an education,” I said, and followed after. He wasn’t going to tell me his plans, and I couldn’t blame him. Such were the times, that left each man and woman imprisoned in their own stockade.

  Gaol

  When I have stood before painted scenes of the wealthy and great—their sport, amours, parley and conference, my eyes always pass from the grandees to the one who attends a pace or two behind, eyes lowered.

  Friend, confessor, adviser, amanuensis, conscience, betrayer, he may be any or all of these things. He is there in the scene, but he is not of equal rank, that much one can tell by his plainer dress, the humble stance. He is at Medici’s elbow, or standing in the wings with the melancholy Prince. He is there with blotting paper when great generals sign the peace, and on the smaller, second horse carrying spare arrows when the Duke goes hunting. At the marriage he stands behind the groom looking doubtful, or sharing a low joke with the bride’s attendant.

  In all these scenes I search for him, the overlooked, the witness, the hero’s stolid, stalwart chum, and when I locate him I ask myself two questions. What does he make of this? Who is paying him?

  Next morn we set out for Dumfries to see Jed in gaol. It would be the last journey of any length we made together.

  In my pack I carried for Jed sweetmeats and a game pie from Mrs. Smeaton. Adam had a couple of bottles of brandy, his mother’s salve for wounds, and—to my surprise—a small Bible he said Jed had asked for. I hoped that unruly man wasn’t intending to make peace with his soul quite yet.

  Prisons in the Border Marches were not as elsewhere. People frequently escaped or were freed, and as often they mysteriously died in them. Much depended on the gaoler, more on whatever guards there might be, and most turned on which Warden or Keeper instructed those guards. Sometimes gaol was the safest place to be, at others it was as good as a death sentence.

  The clatter of arms drowns the voice of the law, Montaigne observes.

  Armed and armoured, we rode cannily around Bell lands, then rejoined the Dumfries road. We were now in Johnstone lands. The greater hills subsided and the land smoothed out. We left behind the secret glens for hiding kye, and the fords where one might expect ambush. This was country that hid its darker intentions under a more amiable face.

  For the most part we rode in silence. My friend sat high, humming to himself, a wee smile on his lips. He seemed older, yet unburdened. His steel bonnet bounced from its strap, his sword from its hanger. No one would mistake him for a student now. There had been a fine hardening and new resolve.

  “Good to see you back living in the house,” I said.

  “A damn sight warmer!”

  “You no longer think Dand wishes to kill you?”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I was dishevelled in dress and mind. My faither’s death, and John’s afore him, and my mother’s marriage to that lascivious clown . . .” His face darkened, then he let it go. Almost smiled. “Still, many of us would make matches few others approve.”

  “Indeed,” I said.

  We rode on briskly. Though the days were drawing out a little, afternoon was well advanced, and we needed to get off the road before dark.

  “If Rob Bell were to die . . .” he said to the general air.

  “. . . You would be arrested. And the Bells would see you hanged.”

  “If he died unwitnessed—”

  “You would never get him alone. In any case, I doubt you are a match for him.”

  That took the smile from his face.

  “I would hack him to pieces.”

  “Difficult if he has already shot you.”

  He huffed at that, but was silent for a while.

  “If another were to get close and kill him . . .” he mused.

  “. . . You would be as bad as he.”

  “Ach, forget I said that.”

  “Said what?”

  We rode on. It was strange to look down and not see Philby louping by the horse’s heels. I winced, did not say.

  “So you must accept this match, or run away with Helen. If you can change her mind, which seems improbable.”

  “You do not know her as I do, Harry.”

  “I should think not. Yet I know her.”

  He frowned but said nothing more.

  At last, sore-arsed and stiff-backed, at dusk we picked up the river and followed it on to Dumfries. Toll gate, the guards, name and business stated, packs checked. They stepped back and stared as we rode into the safety of the town in whose narrow wynds just five years back the Johnstones had hacked down hundreds of Maxwell men. They said the streets ran with blood, though in my experience spattered, oozed, seeped and dried would be more like it.

  We found a lodging and there ate salt cod washed down with clear fiery spirit all the way from the Baltic. The folk there were easy enough, yet still we barred the door to our room when we retired. Adam did not talk further of his plans, nor I of mine, and so we had barred our doors to each other long afore we slept.

  The gaol was hard by the river, little more than a big cellar off the tollbooth. The gaoler was a short, heavy man with a few red hairs clinging about his grizzled head. The only guard was a gangling youth with a skelly eye who seemed weighed down by his o’er-long English rapier.

  Adam and I looked at each other. This was at once more casual and more dangerous than we had reckoned on. Rob and Clapper Bell alone could take this place and dispense what they cried justice.

  The gaoler refused to let us s
ee the sole prisoner.

  “Ye’ll hae to await the Maister.”

  We heard horses, clattering fast and crisp on the cobbled yard road outside. Six troopers with yellow flashes, among them the Captain I recognized from the Scabby Duck. At their head, slipping down easily from his tall bay, my Lord Buccleuch.

  “Fine morn, Fleming!”

  “It is indeed, sir.”

  Adam hesitated then removed his cap before shaking hands. Walter Scott looked at me with mild interest.

  “Ah, the crystal-ball mannie! What does it show you lately?”

  “Alas, my lord, it fell from a high place and is shattered.”

  He smiled at that, but did not proffer his hand before he led us into the gaoler’s room. Plain table, three stools. He sent the gaoler and his man out with a flap of the hand, as one would dismiss a wasp, then asked us to sit.

  It was quiet in there. Through the window slits on one side I could hear the river coursing. On the other, the troopers’ horses panting, the creak of their harness.

  “You come without followers, I see,” Buccleuch observed.

  “We came only to bring succour to my man,” Adam replied. “We felt ourselves safe within your domain.”

  Buccleuch inclined his head at the compliment.

  “Unfortunately, though I have lands here, Dumfries is outwith my writ as Keeper of Liddesdale. The Warden holds sway here, though Johnstone might dispute that. Willie Douglas of Angus would have care of the prisoner. I tell him your man Horsburgh was arrested in Liddesdale, so should remain in my care. It is a fine point, eh? Quite hard to hold the line.”

  Adam went pale, but managed to keep his voice steady.

  “If Earl Angus has Jed, he will give him to the Bells.”

  “I expect he would,” Buccleuch said mildly. “Yet your family favours Maxwell, so perhaps all will be well.”

  Silence. River tummle and horse pant. I understood we were negotiating for our friend’s life. Perhaps our own lives too.