by Robert Low
Leckie’s face was stiff now and Batty leaned forward, his voice harsher.
‘The Laird got the English money, Wharton’s wee lad got a lesson and is safe returned home, and the Regent of the realm is proved to be too weak yet to bother the Laird o’ Hollows. So half right is all good, as they say.’
He leaned easily on the pommel, reining himself in from any more mention of the babe, since he did not know if Hollows had got her back, or even knew she was missing.
‘Only a few English were slain,’ he added.
‘Armstrongs are held,’ Leckie replied, recovering himself a little. ‘Are you here to negotiate for them as a Graham?’
‘I am not. And I am here to negotiate with the master, not his wee hound. Either turn me away or stand aside.’
Leckie did neither; he led Batty up to Hollows, the riders closing in and scowling blackly, though they flexed gauntlets on their lance shafts and looked right and left for hidden men, remembering the English corpses on the road.
It was not a long ride and not much was said between himself and Leckie, but by the end of it Batty had gleaned that the Laird of Hollows knew the babe was missing, but had no more idea where the wee Queen of Scots lay than anyone else.
Hollows smelled of stale rushes and stone dust, the clack of it under his boots seeming strange and empty. The hall was grey dim and the fire in the great hearth a mean affair of smoking sticks; there was no sign of the Lady, but the Laird sat slouched in a chair, his face thunderous.
‘You are a rogue and a bastard-born son of a whore,’ he growled as Batty came up, and watched Batty’s eyes narrow.
‘Aye – squint at me all you dare,’ he added. ‘You might well squint at your own arse by the time you have finished turning in the breeze, for I have a mind to hang you.’
‘Every Armstrong held will fruit the trees at Netherby,’ Batty replied shortly, ‘which you well know, so enough of your bluster.’
The Laird found his own trap turned on him and could only scowl redly and hold his temper in check.
‘Hutchie Elliott,’ Batty said levelly. ‘You need to turn him over to justice, for what he did to Mintie Henderson’s da – and the lass herself. If you have not heard of what happened to her, then you will be the only one left still in ignorance.’
‘No matter of mine, that,’ the Laird replied, but Batty could hear the unease in his voice. Unwilling guest or not, Mintie had been under his roof and protection and it did his honour no good to be associated with such an assault.
‘Then hand Hutchie to me and see justice done.’
‘Justice will be done,’ the Laird replied, recovering a little of himself and drawing up in the seat. ‘I am justice here, not some Graham by-blow. When I decide Hutchie Elliott needs punishment he shall have it, and not before.’
Not before long either, the Laird thought to himself savagely, for bringing this down on us and for failing, him and Leckie both, to track down the babe.
‘That is the second time you have mentioned my parenting,’ Batty answered. ‘It is not a wise thing to do with such a tone.’
‘I speak as I please in my own hall.’
Batty nodded sagely.
‘As you can do. But with so many of your men under a Graham noose, it seems a careless way to appease the hangman.’
The Laird knew those words would whisper their way round his hall and beyond; now his own eyes narrowed, for it was clear Batty Coalhouse had more skills than the ability to kill with just one arm.
‘Are you here to offer for their release?’
‘I am not. I am here for Hutchie – but all matters are chained under God’s good Heaven.’
The Laird sat back, waited, then spread his hands.
‘Is that all?’
Batty looked suddenly weary as he stood.
‘I wonder if the Lady agrees,’ he answered harshly and saw that dig strike hard enough to make the Laird shift and scowl. Batty made a slow show of pulling on his one gauntlet, using his teeth.
‘I give you a final chance,’ he said slowly. ‘Hand over Hutchie or face the consequences.’
The Laird’s face grew plum-coloured and he half rose, tipping the chair backwards with a crash.
‘Consequences!’ he bellowed. ‘You threaten me with consequences. In my own hall? By God, Coalhouse, it is as well Mintie Henderson paid for your head with a good horse, else I would pike it up on the road outside for the world to see what I think of your consequences.’
Batty nodded soberly.
‘Return the Fyrebrande to Mintie at Powrieburn,’ he declared. ‘That agreement is no more.’
‘Return…’
The Laird spluttered, lost for words, then resorted to a bull roar until he found some and threw them at Batty, along with a shaking finger.
‘I could kill you here and now.’
‘You could,’ Batty answered like mild steel. ‘But then you would be an echo of the poor king who so ignored honour as to seize your da – and who would have the graceless face then, Laird of Hollows?’
The Laird was all tremble, like a bull on the end of a straining rope. His voice was hoarse with anger.
‘Get you gone and be grateful for my honour that allows it under hospitality. I will keep the Fyrebrande, but if you want the agreement torn up, so be it. Keep clear of me and mine, Batty Coalhouse. The next time you are seen by an Armstrong, that man will kill you in the worst way he can find.’
He glared around the hall and bellowed echoes into it.
‘You hear that? This man has an hour. Beyond that, any man here or a friend of this tower may kill him and gain my pleasure and reward.’
* * *
The Laird waited for a long time after Batty had slouched out, then called for Sweetmilk Hutchie Elliott; most in the hall thought he was making sure Batty had put distance away from the tower and would not hear him roar some curdle into Sweetmilk, but the truth was that he needed so long to bring his heart and temper under control.
Margaret appeared just before Hutchie did, slipping quietly up to stand at his elbow like a chill wind from the grave; the Laird did not want to look at his Lady, but her words pulled his head round.
‘You would defend this foul wee wen?’ she demanded, flat and heavy as a thrown iron, and he winced at her tone. Cold broth and lumpy porridge from now on, he thought, if I am so lucky; the thought made him waspish with her.
‘It is not about him,’ he replied. ‘It is about Armstrong honour. My father would not have been half as merciful—’
‘Does Armstrong honour permit the violation of women?’ she snapped back. ‘Would your father?’
He knew she was waspish because she had contrived to put Hutchie and Mintie together in the undercroft, but he had no mind for soothing. He rounded on her, savage as a bloody-muzzled dog.
‘No, he would not have stood for it and Armstrong honour does not. Consider yourself fortunate in that, for it also does not permit its chief to be spoken to by anyone – anyone – as if he was a chiel of no account.’
‘You were not always so arrogant,’ she replied, soft and wistful – then put the pepper back in her voice. ‘Like father like son. Mayhap if he had tempered his own hubris, a wee plooky boy-king might have spared him.’
They glared at each other for a long time, then the anger left him like an ebb tide. He waved one dismissive, apologetic hand.
‘My doe,’ he said. ‘This is not worth a quarrel.’
The term made her blink, filled her with sadness for the way it had once rang truer than the false tin it now sounded, for the way it had once thrilled and delighted her as now it did not. She could not speak for the sorrow of it – and then Hutchie Elliott clacked into the centre of her search for words.
He was cautious, for he had heard who had come, so his bow was tolerable, neither too fawning nor too arrogant. His tone, too, was deferential; he was all sweetmilk now.
‘You wished to see me, Lord?’
‘You are a whore-slip who w
ould fuck a haired floor,’ the Laird said and watched the blood rush up into the man’s face, daring him to do something about it. Instead, Hutchie choked it down as if it was another man’s spit and said nothing. Disappointed, the Laird found his goblet and drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘You brought this on Hollows, this Batty Coalhouse,’ he added, and Hutchie, recovered a little, raised his chin in a pinch of old arrogance and a hint of aloes.
‘I thought that had been settled with the gift of a horse. Which I had stolen and you returned.’
The Laird waved that away with the flap of a hand.
‘Not that. Mintie Henderson.’
Hutchie started to speak, but the Lady got to it first.
‘Do not try to deny it, you filth,’ she said loudly, and someone sniggered, reminding Hutchie that folk were listening; his flush went pale round his mouth and the corners of his eyes. Then he smiled his white smile and spread his hands. There was a plump heart on a ribbon round his doublet wrist, a last Valentine token from one of the women left in Hollows; the sight brought rage into the Lady, as if such a man had no right to love tokens.
He saw her look, mistook it and raised the plush heart to his lips, smiling sly as he kissed it.
‘Mintie? Aye, well, it is hard to resist an old love when she insists on it. She was always hot that lass, even when I was at Powrieburn. By God, she was asking for it.’
The Lady struck him, so hard that his head rattled and the ring on her finger smashed a tooth from his mouth, so that he saw it bounce on the flags like a pearl.
‘My tooth—’
The words came out muffled and with a spray of blood from his burst lip, but the thought of ruin to his smile was what brought Hutchie forward at her, his face like a boiled beet and his hand reaching for his dirk.
‘Would you, by God?’
The Laird’s soft, almost gentle voice snapped Hutchie from his next action and he recoiled from it as if scorched. The Lady curled a sneer at him.
‘It is your tooth no longer,’ she pointed out and toed it into the rushes with an elegant gesture of one leather-slippered foot. Then she leaned forward a little.
‘You were asking for it,’ she declared and strode off, while the Laird watched her go and felt a surge of admiration and remembrance as to why he had married the woman.
Hutchie touched his lip, looked at the blood on his fingers and then at the Laird, who scowled back at him.
‘You brought this on Hollows,’ he said. ‘You repair it.’
‘On my own?’
The Laird heard the desperate whine and glowered.
‘Take what men will go with you for friendship or fear,’ he growled and then looked round pointedly. ‘If there are, as I suspect, too few of them, take those who seek reward and my good graces.’
He leaned forward and gimleted Hutchie’s eyeballs with his stare.
‘Find Batty Coalhouse. Kill him, for the honour of the Name.’
Near Canobie, Liddesdale
Two days later
On the crusted rock rimming the Esk, Batty knelt on his good knee under the branches of a twisted rowan, with the creeping moss crystalled with melting snow all around him.
He did not care for rowan, for it was Faerie, more so than any other of the trees – save, perhaps, for yew. But you could make a good bowstave from yew, and providing you didn’t take the shade of a hot day under it, you were safe enough. Forget that rule and you were transported away to the land of Faerie, taken up on a horse and hag-ridden through mire and gorse and never able to get off.
The rowan was worse. It came from Elfland, Batty knew – well, everyone knew. The Faerie loved the berries and brought them from their own land, spilling them carelessly in this one so that rowan grew.
Batty had heard that eating one of the rowan’s berries would make a person drunk, but he had never tried it, lest he lose all sense and eat two. Eating two would ensure that the person would live to be a hundred years old. Eating three would make the person thirty years old again, which seemed a fine thing – but they would stay that way for a hundred years.
Batty wondered if it regrew arms, for if it did he might chance the giant called Sharvan, whom the Queen of Elfland had asked to guard the rowan tree…
The sound of hooves on wet road jerked him back to the crusted rock and the rowan roots. Below, the riders swayed gently down the line of the river. Heading north, he saw. For the Mosspaul, most likely, all eight of them bound for drink and women in the best tavern for miles, and though a longish ride, well worth it; a cruel grin curled his lip at what he could have done to them. Even with only the one arm, he added to himself. Who needs bloody rowan?
He could not see who they were, for they had swaddled themselves in cloaks against the cold and damp, so he waited until they had passed and then levered himself up and moved back to where he had left Fiskie.
He rode away, stiff and sore, heading for the greater steep of bare Tinnis Hill and Ill-Made’s old hidey-hole snugged up in the Faerie stones. It was a cave in a hollow, hidden from view, and Batty had already determined on it when he had ridden up to Powrieburn for the last time, just after leaving Hollows. No rowan round Ill-Made’s hole, he remembered, and tried not to admit that the shiver he felt at having to stay there at all was more than a snell wind through the trees.
He had ridden from Hollows to Powrieburn earlier, and found Will Elliot’s horse at the door, the man himself stroking his beard and looking grim.
‘Is Mintie returned?’ Batty had asked, and Will’s scowl had been rank as musk.
‘She is – how could you leave her to manage on her own?’ Will burst out, shaking his head with disbelief. ‘There are week-dead corpses looking livelier and better than Mintie.’
‘By God, she will not be glad to hear it,’ Batty had replied flatly. ‘Nor will your case be advanced telling the lass that.’
Megs had appeared just then and bobbed warily to him, so he told her what was needed and she went off to let the others know. Powrieburn was running by committee, Batty thought, which makes an elephant out of the designs for a horse.
‘Why are you gathering in such supplies?’ Will had asked, breaking Batty’s reverie. ‘Where are you bound?’
To Hell, by the fastest road Mintie Henderson can devise, Batty thought. Well, he corrected, her and myself both.
‘I am to bring Hutchie Elliott to justice,’ Batty told him then. ‘Mintie has hired me for it – five pounds English, which is fast becoming my set fee and the hardest coin I ever earned.’
Will’s scowl deepened.
‘That is my job,’ he’d growled back. ‘You will set the Border aflame if you try it.’
A sudden thought struck him and he squinted.
‘Is that why you are pursuing it? Is it to further your own names – Firebrand? Slow match?’
‘It is not,’ Batty had replied coldly. ‘It is because I was asked and because I did not finish the business before.’
Which was not all truth, though Will did not know it. Even not knowing, he had dismissed it with an impatient wave.
‘It is done with now. Leave Hutchie Elliott to me and the law… besides, if you bring him to a trial it will simply drag Mintie through the mire of what he did, for all to see and hear.’
‘Too late for that,’ Batty had answered. ‘Hollows rings with it and so it will spread like a canker from there. The Lady does not care for it – but the Laird of Hollows cares more for his Name than his wife or her honour.’
‘Christ in Heaven,’ Will had declared, crossing himself for the impiety. ‘It will reach Henderson ears – Ower-The-Moss Hob is not so beaten down or hagged by black-rent payments that he will not rise at such an insult.’
Batty had nodded. The chief of the Hendersons in Liddesdale would have something to say about Powrieburn, certes.
‘Jesu and all saints – you are already burning the Border.’
‘Then forget Hutchie and extend your energies
to putting it out.’
Megs had come out then with a bulging flour sack of provisions, which Batty heaved up on his saddle with a one-handed ease that Will had not missed.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he’d asked, catching Batty’s bridle as the man reined round. ‘Mintie will not thank you for it when she comes to her senses.’
Batty had not answered him, simply tugged himself free and rode off. But he had thought about it since and thought on it now, as he picked his way up Tinnis to Ill-Made’s hidden lair.
He had thought it was because of the business with Hans. Mayhap it was in the blood – Hans Kohlhase could have gone his way and accepted that his horses had been snaffled out from under him, that the law he relied on to get them back had been bought by the same arrogant, powerful noble.
He had not. He had become his own law and thrown down a challenge to the whole of Saxony. Blood and fire had followed; robbery and death had followed. War had followed. In the end, it had fallen out as Batty had always known it would – the Kohlhases had been caught and broken on the wheel.
All but me. Mayhap I am still fighting the same war, Batty thought. Or it is in the blood – and though Dickon might argue it, the ruthless murder in me is Kohlhase as much as Border Graham.
Will thinks I burn his Border and that may be true – but it is already smouldering and will burst into flames in the spring, whether he knows it or not.
Mintie thinks she is barred from decent life and even Heaven – there is no soothing her with the truth. Which is that, in the end, no one will care whether one more quine in the Debatable lost her maidenhood unwillingly. No one but Batty Coalhouse, he added and smiled to himself, for that was closer to the meat of the matter than he liked to admit, even to himself. Never, of course, to Mintie or, God forbid, Will Elliot, whom Batty liked as much as any man.
I care for Mintie, he admitted. Not in the way Will does, not an old man chasing a young lass like some panting wee pup. But for the spirit in her, for the memory it brings of what I once was, before…
He felt the stump twitch.
Before this, he thought. Before the axe cut it and my old life away, plunging me into the knowledge, icy as winter water, that neither God nor the Devil cares.
