by Neil Oliver
Although John Grant had noted the bird’s sudden change of heart, he had not allowed it to matter. But when a flight of half a dozen more sped across his line of sight, all in the same direction as the first, he began to pay attention. Pulled back, forced to ignore the falling into space, he sat up and looked around. Before there had been the sound of birdsong from a stand of trees some hundreds of yards away to his right. Now they were silent. Those that had not taken flight listened as well.
From the sun-hardened ground beneath him there came the faintest suggestion of a disturbance. It wasn’t a vibration just yet – more a ringing in his ears – but it was there. He stood up. He was not alarmed as such but his senses were heightened. Instinctively he turned until he could see his home, a long, low cottage built of dry stone and roofed with turf. A curl of white smoke rose languidly from the chimney. It should have been a reassuring sight. But given the tightness building in his chest, it worried him instead. Rather than a source of comfort, the house seemed … asleep, unaware, and therefore vulnerable.
But vulnerable to what? He did not know. He felt the ever-present sensation he called (to himself and only to himself) the push, accompanied by the faint taste of iron in his mouth. Doubt and fear might be unsettling – a pricking of the skin – but the push brought only certainty and had him set off downhill towards the house at a steady dog trot. After a hundred yards he stopped. The vibration beneath his feet was unmistakable now, and its source lay behind him, somewhere off beyond the trees and the silent birds. He was between its cause and his home – a barrier, however flimsy, and therefore a grain of comfort. He picked up the pace.
2
Hawkshaw
His companions called him Bear. Badr (which means full moon) felt unfamiliar in their mouths and so they had exchanged it for something that made more sense to them. He was huge, after all – well over six feet tall and broad like the door of a castle’s keep. He was darker than those he lived among now, his skin like a tanned hide. His hair and beard, both long and unruly, were black as the night sky. His eyes were black as well, like a bird’s, so that no light escaped them. Across his cheekbones and around his eyes were clusters of darker pigment, larger than freckles. Around his head was wound a black scarf that kept his hair from falling into his eyes.
He had appeared among them weeks before. He had ridden along the rutted track to the Jardine stronghold on a warhorse black as his hair. The saddle and other tack were of a style unfamiliar to the Scots, but it was the man who was strangest of all. Folk in the fields stopped what they were doing and straightened aching backs, the better to examine him as he passed by and to remember the moment ever after. Though he knew he was stared at, still he kept his gaze straight ahead. It was not disdain, rather the air of a man with other things to think about. The long curved sword on one hip attracted fascinated glances.
Man and horse were still hundreds of yards short of the palisade encircling the tower house when there came the sound of iron bolts yanked free from their catches. Heavy wooden gates were pushed outwards. Three men, mounted on shaggy ponies, emerged from inside the stockade, fell naturally into an arrowhead formation and set off at a canter.
Badr had watched their approach with detachment. The lead rider pulled up some little way in front of him while his companions drew wide and passed either side. They spurred their mounts around and took up flanking positions to the rear of the intruder. Their leader stood up in his stirrups in an effort to gain a height advantage, but in vain. It seemed to him that even the stranger’s horse, an expensive destrier by the look of it, gazed down at him.
‘What do you want here?’ he asked.
The black horse stopped, apparently of its own accord, and Badr fixed his gaze upon the man who addressed him.
‘I have come a long way,’ he said. ‘They say this house is home to a powerful lord. I would like to offer him my service.’
The Scot smiled, glancing at his companions. They nodded in return. They were younger, less experienced and keen to be reassured that all was well, but their leader remained guarded, suspicious.
‘My name is Armstrong,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you to him. But you must give up your sword. You are welcome, but my master’s guests must surrender their arms.’
Armstrong placed his right hand on the pommel of his own sword. He was no match for the newcomer in terms of physical size, but he stood his ground just the same. His eyes were green, almost startlingly so, and unblinking despite the fact that the sun was behind the Moor and shone straight into Armstrong’s face. The visitor was certainly big, powerfully built and armed for battle. He carried himself well, with the confidence of experience hard won. He was a threat to any and all. Something in his bearing, however, exuded calm as well. Everything – from the tone of his voice to the way he sat in the saddle – suggested he felt no need to prove himself. Armstrong, a man-at-arms and a leader among his own kind, had lived long enough to gauge a situation. He had survived his share of tense encounters and in so doing had learned some of the tricks of reading men. For the time being the giant meant no harm – and he could be a powerful ally to any who secured his loyalty. His lairdship would surely be pleased to make his acquaintance at least.
Badr Khassan nodded and dismounted. His movements were smooth and quick, made perfect by hard muscle and taut sinew unencumbered by superfluous bulk. He landed on the track with hardly a sound. With one hand he reached back, like a girl, to free long hair from inside the collar of his cloak.
He walked towards Armstrong, unbuckling his sword belt. By the time he reached the mounted man he had wound the leather strapping around the crescent-shaped scabbard. He passed it over casually, as though giving it away for good and without regret.
‘Your master is a sensible man,’ he said, his face breaking into a smile that revealed teeth startlingly white. ‘For as long as I take shelter under his roof, my sword is his to command.’
‘So be it,’ said the Scot.
Taking the scimitar, heavy as a child, and placing it across his garron’s neck, Armstrong pulled on the reins so that the beast wheeled around towards the entrance of the palisade. With neither word nor backward glance he set off for home. Badr followed, leading his own horse and trailed at a respectful distance by the others. He considered the manner of the man who had spoken to him. He had read confidence in his demeanour, and something more besides. The Moor was long enough in the tooth to know the effect his appearance had on most people, men and women alike, and yet this Armstrong had met his gaze and addressed him plainly, and with the authority of one certain of his own abilities as well as of his station in life. Whoever commanded such a man – even just one such man – was a warlord Badr Khassan looked forward to meeting.
The stronghold had been called Hawkshaw for longer than anyone could remember. It had been home to the Jardine family for four generations. The first of them had been a Frenchman, Guillaume du Jardon of Normandy, and it was his great-grandson, Sir Robert, who held it now – and who had ordered and overseen the building of the gloomy three-storey pile that dominated the surrounding land from its perch on a rocky outcrop overlooking a bend of the River Tweed.
Clustered around the outside of the palisade were the homes of some of Sir Robert’s followers, low dwellings of timber and turf. Thin tendrils of smoke trailed skywards from fires within. Women, small and skinny as whippets, emerged from some of the doorways, stooping low beneath stone lintels and followed by scrawny tykes. They peered at the new arrival as he and his minders wound their way up the pathway to the tower house.
While careful to maintain his leisurely air, Badr glanced around him, reading the story of Hawkshaw. The bleak, square house at its heart lacked panache, but was an imposing structure nonetheless. Everything about it, from the thickness of the walls to the miserly proportions of the few windows and arrow slits, spoke of a preoccupation with defence. There was no doorway on the ground floor – instead a heavy wooden ladder descended from a narrow portal a doze
n feet up on the left-hand wall. If attackers breached the palisade and threatened the house itself, the ladder could be pulled inside, making it all but impossible for any unwelcome guests to gain access. Best of all, the house squatted upon a natural high point – a shelf of pale grey stone that, as well as giving the advantage of height, had likely provided most of the building material.
‘Leave your horse with Donny there,’ said Armstrong, glancing over his shoulder to Badr and gesturing to the younger of the pair bringing up the rear. ‘Follow me up to the house and we’ll see if his lairdship has time for you.’
Leaving the stranger trailing behind him, Armstrong dug both heels into his horse’s flanks and trotted up the last tens of yards to the foot of the ladder. Badr watched the Scotsman as he jumped lightly down from the saddle and walked to the base of the tower.
‘Jamie!’ he called up, one hand cupped by the side of his mouth.
Seconds later a sandy head appeared at the doorway.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’ said the head. It was unclear whether the use of ‘sir’ had been a genuine acknowledgement of seniority or something light-hearted between men of equal rank.
Armstrong climbed a few rungs up the ladder and began talking, too quietly for Badr to hear. After a couple of exchanges the one called Jamie disappeared back inside. Badr sniffed the air of the place – horses, and the hot, new-baked smell of an iron forge at work. He breathed deep of it.
Armstrong stayed on the ladder, glancing occasionally at the newcomer. Badr heard the sound of a man clearing his throat and spun slowly around on his heels. The one called Donny, a short, weedy man with a weak-looking chin and watery blue eyes beneath a head of alarming red hair, had evidently delivered the horses into the care of a stable lad out of sight of where they stood, and had now returned. Badr found it hard to guess the ages of the men and women he encountered in these lowlands of Scotland. Many seemed so physically worn out – weakened by some or other hardship and the always unforgiving climate – that their adulthoods appeared like an extended old age. This one’s manner suggested some residue of youth, but his face was a mask of weariness.
Silent by his side was the third of Badr’s guardians, a taller, heavier individual with dark hair and a face dominated by a scar that looped around his right eye and down his cheek, like a question mark. Both were keeping a respectful distance, hands on hips and feet shoulder-width apart. Their downcast eyes, however, made a lie of the seeming confidence of their stances. Beyond standing by, they seemed uncertain. Had Badr decided to move against them, it appeared unlikely they would have done much about it.
Badr would have been content to remain silent but Donny gave in to temptation.
‘Whaur are ye fae anyway, big man?’ he asked, rocking forward and upwards on to his toes in desperate search of more height.
Badr was at a loss. During his travels through the long island, he had mastered much of the tongue spoken by the English, but the variant form that prevailed here in the land of the Scots was often beyond him. By way of a reply he shook his head slowly, a carefully quizzical expression on his face to convey, he hoped, friendliness as well as a lack of understanding.
Donny tutted and glanced at his companion, eyebrows raised in exasperation, before trying again.
‘Whaur … are … you’ – he pointed at Badr with one bony finger, and nodded for emphasis – ‘from?’
Badr smiled, none the wiser. Mercifully, he heard a shout from the direction of the tower house and, grateful for the distraction, turned once more towards the ladder and Armstrong.
‘Sir Robert is heading out now for a ride,’ called the Scotsman. ‘He will see you when he comes down.’
‘An’ who the fuck’s this, then?’
The words escaped him, but Badr understood their sentiment just the same. He turned back again to see who had growled and found he was looking into a new face – and for once, it was more or less level with his own.
‘Well?’ it said.
Another question, as aggressive as the first and seemingly addressed to all three men, rather than to Badr alone.
‘Just turned up out of the blue, Will,’ said Donny. His tone was cheerful, placatory – born of experience of dealing with this bristling, aggressive individual. ‘Spotted him on the road outside and brought him in. Armstrong knows all about it, he’s up at the house.’
‘Is he indeed,’ said Will, looking not at Donny but at Badr. ‘And what about the big ugly bastard? Does he speak for himself or does he just stand about casting shadows?’
Donny laughed nervously, as did his comrade with the scarred, questioning face.
The Moor ignored the tone as well as the insult.
‘My name is Badr Khassan,’ he said. ‘I have been travelling but I am tired. I would stay here a while – a few days, a week or two maybe, if your master permits.’
Will nodded elaborately, sarcastic to the core.
‘Good for you,’ he said.
There was a smell of drink about him too, and alcohol never brought out Will Kennedy’s good side (if Will Kennedy had a good side, he had kept it safely hidden all these years).
More or less as tall as Badr, the newcomer had none of the width. He was skinny as a rail, with a chest that was almost concave. Years of stooping – the better to get his bullying face as close as possible to the noses of his intended victims – had made him round-shouldered as well. For all the cruelty in his countenance, his long, thin face was handsome, with pale blue eyes. He was bearded, the dark hair shot with grey.
As soon as Badr laid eyes on the man, the word ‘snake’ sprang instantly to mind. There was a hint of wiry strength coiled in that mean frame, like meat that had dried tough, as well as the suggestion of a viper’s speed.
He wondered again at the nature of this environment that had produced his oldest friend, Patrick, and that was home still to his woman and his child. The discovery of predators such as this Will, topped to the brim with venom, reminded him of the innumerable dangers that lurked in the undergrowth wherever he travelled. Though he had not yet laid eyes upon Patrick’s family far less spent time with them, still he felt a protective reflex in his chest, a need to find them and to see to their well-being.
Tension crackled in the air, but not for Badr. The charge passed between the Scotsmen as they waited to see who would move first, who would speak.
It was while Badr and Will were still eyeing one another’s potential, gauging intent, that the laird of the house stepped unobserved on to the top rung of the ladder. Looking down at Armstrong, Sir Robert noticed that his man was intent on observing something happening off down the slope beneath the tower. Following his gaze, the laird drew a breath when he spotted the stranger. Even from a distance Badr was a striking figure, built altogether differently from those around him. And of course he recognised Will Kennedy – malcontent and bully, but fearless and quick with knife and sword. Faced off against each other, the foreigner and Kennedy reminded Sir Robert of a full moon and a crescent. Hearing the gasp, Armstrong looked up, though Sir Robert was in no doubt that his man had already sensed his presence.
‘Bloody Kennedy,’ Armstrong said, but the seeming exasperation was more for show than anything sincerely felt. ‘If there’s no trouble available he’ll make his own. I should get down there.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Sir Robert. ‘Might as well see what our visitor makes of the locals.’
Unaware of the audience on the ladder, Will Kennedy continued with his posturing. He was wearing a woollen cloak over woollen trousers and an ancient and heavily stained leather jack, a garment packed tight with wool and worn in hope of taking some of the hurt out of blows from swords and dirks. It was tied shut across his narrow front with four leather loops around four wooden toggles. As he stepped closer to the bigger man, within arm’s reach, he delicately pulled back the left-hand side of his cloak with the fingertips of his left hand. Hanging by his side was a cruel-looking long-bladed knife, the handle angle
d forwards so it might be easily and speedily drawn with the right. Will glanced down at the weapon theatrically, as though surprised to find it there at his side, and then up again into Badr’s face.
‘Careful now,’ said Badr softly.
‘Careful?’ said Kennedy, his blue eyes narrowing, and letting his cloak fall back into place so that the knife was concealed from view.
Without another word Badr took half a step towards his antagonist. For the briefest of moments the two men were touching, chest to chest, before Badr stepped back again. The move had looked for all the world – and to Armstrong and Sir Robert – like the first steps of a dance. It had lasted no longer than a heartbeat, and the expression on Will’s face when it was over was one of shock. No one – not even women – invaded his personal space so completely and so calmly without his consent. He looked as though he had been slapped across the face.
In fact it was a gasp from the red-headed and suddenly red-faced Donny that broke the spell. Will Kennedy snapped his head around at the sound and, realising that Donny was pointing witlessly at the ground, looked down between his own heavily booted feet. Four wooden toggles lay on the hard-baked mud, along with their looped fastenings. Reflexively he raised both hands to his jacket and found that it was hanging limply open. Where the toggles had once been there were just four stumps of leather, cut through so cleanly the fresh ends shone bright white.
‘Knives are dangerous,’ said Badr. ‘Best avoided.’
If Badr Khassan had a blade of his own – and it appeared he did – no one glimpsed it that day, nor on any day thereafter.
3
Badr was as close to the fire as he could get without actually sitting among the flames. For all that he had found to admire and even enjoy in this northern land, the enervating cold was an affront. Weeks had passed since his arrival at the gates of the Jardine stronghold, and one way or another he had enjoyed (or endured) a complete round of the seasons in the countries of England and Scotland. For one grown to manhood in a sun-baked land far away to the south, the rain and wind that presided over so many days, not to mention the toll exacted by the gloom and gnawing cold of winter, had been hard to take. It was summer now – late summer admittedly, but summer just the same – and already the chill of evening was deeper than he would have liked.
