Dacre's War (39 page)

Fearing he would kill him if he lifted his fist again, Crozier hurled him out of the gates, where he sprawled. ‘See him out of the valley,' Crozier shouted at a watchman, who nodded and drew his sword. Prodded to his feet, the sailor rose and set off shakily down the woodland path, from where the whistling refrain of a shanty song drifted up the track and followed Crozier into the keep.

The warden of the Scottish middle march did not like the look of Barton. Bruised and bloodied, the sailor stood in his guardroom, more like one he should throw in his cells than trust for information. Yet he could not ignore the man's story. ‘Only doing my duty, sir,' said Barton. ‘A rogue like that should not be at large.'

The warden eyed his informant with distaste, but after a brief hesitation he sighed. ‘We will send out a party today. If we catch him, you will be rewarded in the usual way.' He lifted a finger to his lieutenant, and the sailor was taken away to be given a berth for a night. The informant's broken face and dragging limp seemed not to trouble him. If anything, the warden thought, he looked strangely content. Gleeful, that was the word.

Jedburgh Castle, the warden's stronghold, was a morning's ride from Crozier's keep. Helmets gleaming, the posse cantered across the hills and into the valley, reaching the walls before noon. The sun was brilliant upon the battlements, the trees washed in new-budded green, and the warden held his gloved hand over his eyes as he called the guard to bring Crozier to the gate.

They did not have long to wait. Crozier stepped out and looked up at the warden sitting over him on his horse. ‘What's your business?' he asked.

The man leaned towards him. ‘We have been informed you are sheltering a sorcerer.'

The borderer almost laughed. ‘A sorcerer? What sort of nonsense is this?'

‘Deadly serious, I assure you,' the warden replied. ‘We are informed you have a guest, a Frenchman by the name of Antoine d'Echelles, who casts spells and consorts with the devil. We have a witness to his deeds. I need not tell you what fate awaits those who deal in the occult, or aid such malefactors in their fiendish work.'

Crozier jerked his head at Wat the Wanderer, and the gates were drawn wide. ‘You may enter,' he said to the warden. ‘If you can find a sorcerer, you'll be as good as a magician yourself.'

The warden and his men rode into the courtyard and dismounted. Crozier, no longer looking amused, stood before them, Tom and Benoit at his side. ‘The sorcerer, as you call him, is a soldier. He is also a healer. You can examine his potions and herbs yourself, over there.' He pointed at Antoine's shed. ‘Speak to any of the villagers who've been cured by him, and they'll tell you he is as holy and good a man as any of the pope's elect.'

The warden sucked in his breath. ‘Careful, now,' he said. ‘That's heretical language.'

‘I think not,' Crozier replied. ‘Antoine is a simple man of God, as our priest will confirm.'

The warden waved his hand. ‘Bring him to me.'

‘He is not here. He has returned to the French army.'

‘Mighty convenient, isn't it?' The warden looked interested. ‘Gone just as we come to catch him. How d'you explain that?'

Crozier shrugged. ‘Go seek him yourself and ask. He will be with the garrison at Dunbar Castle by now, and sailing home to France from there at the earliest opportunity.'

Antoine was, at that moment, galloping in the other direction, across the western march towards the Galloway hills and the Solway coast, where he could take a boat to the continent. Barton had been scarcely a mile along the road to Jedburgh, the evening before, when Crozier told Antoine he must leave. There was no doubting the malice the sailor intended towards the Croziers and, as a deserter, Antoine must not be found with them.

As Crozier saddled the horses, and the soldier packed his belongings, farewells were hurried, though the embrace between the soldier and Old Crozier was like that of father and son. He came to Louise last, with a tender smile. ‘You will have good news soon to share, is that not so?' She blushed, and nodded, before hugging him tight.

‘Nobody knows yet,' she whispered.

Antoine left without another word, following Crozier into the night, and onto the westward road. It was first light when the borderer returned, the Frenchman safely beyond the middle march, and the sea so close he could smell it.

‘Who is your informant?' Crozier asked the warden, who threw his reins to one of his men.

‘He gave no name, but he had a sailor's gait, and the bound hair. And a brand on his neck you couldn't miss . . .'

Adam shook his head as if with pity. ‘Oliver Barton, that's who he is. The man bears a grudge. I kicked him out of here yesterday. This is nothing more than petty revenge, and a waste of your time. I am surprised you believed the word of someone like him.'

‘Nobody better at catching a felon than another just as bad,' said the warden resentfully.

Crozier stepped back. ‘Well, you can search the premises, but I would prefer you took me at my word. I have no reason to lie.'

The warden looked unimpressed. ‘A clansman's word is as slippery as his sword. I will never trust you, or your kind.' He came closer to the borderer, his voice falling. ‘You have had trouble of this kind before, have you not? You were thought to be harbouring a heretic, that time. And now it is a sorcerer.' He cast his eyes around the yard, at the keep's glowering battlements and the wall of trees that encircled them all, and shuddered. ‘A den of thieves and murderers this place always was, but now, it seems, it is worse than that.' He screwed his eyes tight against the sun. ‘Common vermin I understand. Devil worshippers are something else again. They are not natural, and nor are those who consort with them. If there is any truth in the accusation, I will be back. There is no punishment too cruel for those who do Satan's work. In the name of all that is sacred, I will make sure you suffer.'

He got back on his horse, and his men lined up behind him, bridles and spurs jingling. In silence, the clan watched them go. Bright though the day was, it felt to Crozier that the sun was suddenly cold.

CHAPTER FORTY

April 1525

The longer he spent in prison, the clearer was Dacre's mind. Although the devils had been banished he still stayed awake at night and slept by day, his main torment now the dark itself, not what it held or hid.

Calm restored, he could think more lucidly than he had in years. Heartened by the old testament and its doctrines of vengeance and destruction, one day he startled Blackbird by picking up his bible and beginning to read.

‘Hold on there now,' the butler began, ‘I'd rather you didn't preach . . .' But Dacre ignored him and ploughed on. The Latin was incomprehensible to Blackbird, but he recognised the expression on Dacre's face. Now he understood. With a grudging smile he leaned back against the wall, and waited for the words to end.

When they did, the baron turned to him, his eyes wide. ‘Roughly put, the psalmist is asking, ‘Can wicked rulers be allied with God, who frame mischief by statute? They band together against the life of the righteous, and condemn the innocent to death. But the Lord has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge. He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness . . .' The baron tapped the book. ‘Wipe them out, Blackbird, did ye hear? Wipe them out, he says.'

‘Keep your voice down,' the butler whispered. ‘This is seditious talk.'

Dacre put a finger to his lips, as if he were a child playing a game, but there was nothing juvenile in his look. ‘There's something else,' he said softly. He felt under his pallet and drew out a letter, the paper stained, the writing so crooked it was as if a bird had walked through ink and then onto the page.

He looked at Blackbird, and raised his eyebrows. ‘See this? It all begins to make sense now.' He handed it to the butler, who deciphered the erratic line.
It was Crozer killed the horses, and set the devils on you. Of this you can be sure. I am now gone from there. B

‘Who'd have thought he could write?' he murmured.

Dacre scoffed. ‘I doubt he can. He will have paid someone to compose this, but that's not the point. He has left Crozier's Keep, because he has proof it was Crozier who was acting against me. Of all the names that came out in court, his was never once mentioned. And yet, I can picture it: he had them all under his whip, dancing to his tune. Behind every accusation, his hand was at work. Wastrel and thug that he is, he thought he could bring me to my knees. Hah! No man's managed that yet.'

The look on the baron's face was hungry, eager for revenge. ‘I need you to go north, Blackbird. Set the Tynedale men onto Crozier. Make him suffer, however it is done.' Blackbird nodded. ‘But I need more than that.' Dacre rubbed a hand over his matted beard. ‘Crozier has been plotting for months to ruin me, of that I'm certain, but there's something else afoot, something the cardinal wants hidden, though what it is I haven't an inkling. Whatever is keeping Wolsey awake at night will have nothing to do with Crozier. You must do some digging for me, Blackbird. Ought to have set you to this weeks ago, so I should. Damn me and my wavering mind.'

The butler looked puzzled, but as Dacre told him of Wolsey's visit, and the suspicions it had raised, Blackbird's smile slid into something less warm. ‘I may be absent some weeks, it seems,' he said, when Dacre had finished, but the baron seemed unconcerned.

‘Be gone, then,' he said, flapping his hand, whose rings now slid down to his knuckles.

Blackbird left the prison, a frown on his face. Whistling for a ferry, he watched the dim lamp swing towards him through the dark, and a hand reached up to help him into the boat. Sally would be surprised to see him tonight, but this was no social visit. If she would arrange to take the baron his meals, he would head north and find whatever it was that had made Wolsey avoid the Fleet since the day he and Dacre had talked. As the river washed under his trailing hand, Blackbird felt the first stirring of hope since the cardinal had struck the table in the Star Chamber with his hammer and told the guard to tie Dacre's hands, and he had watched his master being led away, like a bull to slaughter.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

June 1525

The servant bobbed a curtsey and informed Lady Foulberry that there was a man at the gate. ‘Indeed?' she asked, looking up from her needlework. She sat by an open window, the summer day warming her back.

‘He says the name is Blackbird, my lady. He is Lord Dacre's man.'

Needlework was thrown aside as Isabella picked up her skirts and ran to her husband's office. ‘We cannot see him!' she cried.

‘Quite the contrary, my love,' her husband replied. ‘Of course we shall admit him. I have been expecting a visit of the kind. To send him away would be to confirm our complicity.'

‘But we are complicit, and he knows it! Our deposition was read out in the Star Chamber!' Isabella clasped her hands, which would otherwise have flapped around the tiny room.

Lord Foulberry stepped out from behind his desk, and pressed her hands between his. ‘For pity's sake, be calm. Follow my lead. We shall survive this, I promise. Do not forget that Dacre lies in prison. He poses no immediate threat.'

Blackbird was shown into the great hall, to be met by the stonefaced Foulberrys. Her ladyship's arm was through her husband's, though what appeared to be a display of affection was more a support in case her legs buckled.

‘My lord. My lady,' said Blackbird. ‘I doubt this visit will come as a surprise.'

The Foulberrys did not speak, and the three remained standing, as if a formal dance was about to begin. Blackbird moved closer, stripping off his riding gloves. His hosts could not know that they were the first of the many detractors on whom he had called who had allowed him over the threshold. The other accusers, the length of the border, had sent their guards and dogs to see him off. At Sir John Wetherington's gates he had been obliged to draw his sword to quell a mastif's zeal. It would not bark again. Yet here was Lord Foulberry, one of the most powerful of Dacre's enemies, willing to see him.