Dacre's War (45 page)

The baron was growing weary. He had criss-crossed the eastern boundary of his lands, and found much to perturb him. Unlike the western reaches, the dales and hamlets in these parts were in poor repair, ragged from constant raids, the people almost as unkempt as their ravaged hovels, the hilltops blackened by recent fire, and the valley pasturelands all but empty of cattle and sheep.

He had just left the last settlement he would see that day, and was frowning. The villagers had crowded around his horse with tales of the Liddesdale reivers and their scathing of the land. The baron had listened, and assured them of his help, but this barely mollified them, and it was with some difficulty that he rode beyond their clutches, and found himself once more alone on the moorland track. unsettled at so much destruction, he rode briskly, contemplating the rising tide of vengeance across the marches in his absence, and wondering what role he had played in fomenting such trouble.

The afternoon was advancing, and he was many miles from Naworth. The sun hung heavy in the west, disappearing behind misty banks of cloud. Woodsmoke filled the air, and despite what he had seen that day he felt content. He was home now, and could begin to take care of his territory and his people, as he had always intended. Wrongs would be righted, he would make sure of that.

On he rode, the hazy light softening the horizon. His thoughts had turned to the dinner that awaited him when he saw a figure flitting across a distant hill. Raising a hand against the sun’s dying glimmer, he made out a rider cantering along the ridge. A single horseman was nothing to alarm him, yet something stirred in his gut. He rode on, eyes fixed on the rider, who having spotted him had cut off the hill and appeared to be heading his way.

The letter had lain in Dacre’s room, upon his bed, for several days. Joan had written it the night before she left for Bolton, telling Blackbird it was to be passed to her father as soon as he returned from Berwick. The butler had given it no thought, until he heard of the maid’s ordeal the night before. The girl had been brought back to the castle by the captain of the guard, sobbing like a child. Little sense could be got out of her or the captain, who was soused as a barrel of brine. All that Blackbird and the housekeeper could make out was that the maid had been set upon by a Scottish thug, and forced at knifepoint to tell him where her mistress was. ‘I told him she was with her sister in Bolton,’ she wailed, hiding her face in her hands. ‘I had no choice. What could he want with her?’ A groan escaped her, and she began to rock herself back and forth, the night’s excitement too much for her nerves. The housekeeper looked at Blackbird, who shook his head. Given a warm infusion of camomile, the girl was sent to bed.

By morning, she was calmer. Once more questioned about her attacker, she chattered on about his knife and his sword one minute, and the next avoided Blackbird’s eye and stumbled over her words, as if she were hiding something. Nothing more was learned from her.

When Dacre’s guards returned a few hours later, to say the baron was on his way home, but would not be back till nightfall, Blackbird ran upstairs to his master’s room, and found Joan’s letter. The ink was smudged, he now saw, as if droplets had spilled on the paper. Snatching it up, he called for a messenger, gave him the letter, and told him to find his master out on the eastern dales. The note, at first so innocuous, now reeked of trouble. He should have opened it the day she left and braved Dacre’s wrath for his impudence.

The messenger’s horse stamped and snorted as it reached Dacre’s side. The baron reined in, recognising the soldier, who reached into his saddlebag. The baron’s heart began to hammer. He held out his hand, took the letter, and opened it, squinting to make out its message.

Dearest Father
, it began, the writing starting out neat, but turning into a scrawl by the end of the page.

By the time you are returned from Berwick I will be married. I have left with Oliver Barton, and we are to be wed, and I love him, so you cannot be angry, but happy, indeed I trust you will be for you have long wanted me settled and I shall be, and most joyfully, though not if you are angry. You must not be. Your most loving and respectful daughter, Joan.

The messenger watched the baron. The only sound was his horse’s laboured breath. ‘Is there a reply?’ he asked, when it seemed Dacre had forgotten he was there.

‘Mmm?’ Dacre looked up, and shook his head. ‘Nothing urgent. Tell Blackbird I will be home in time for a late dinner. You go ahead, boy, you will ride faster than me, but I won’t be far behind.’

With a salute, the messenger left, he and his horse dwindling to a speck on the hillside before disappearing. Dacre watched, unblinking, as if he had been struck by lightning, and could neither move nor think. He crumpled the letter in his fist, a taste on his tongue so bitter it might have been gall. The murderer and thief he had sent to spy on Crozier had betrayed his paymaster instead. He had been a fool of the most witless kind to think he could bring a man of that sort into his house and not suffer in some way. Barton, meant to be the agent of his revenge, had brought ruin to his house.

Seeing in the baron’s daughter an opportunity of untold wealth, the sailor had grabbed it, as men like him will always do. Such a brute could have no idea of her real value. Dacre could admit now that he loved her more than he had ever loved before. She was a treasure, compared to which silver was worthless. And now her future was blighted. No lord or gentleman would marry her after this. She was fit only for the nunnery.

Tears rolled unchecked down his face. Staring at the dusk-lit hills, he felt the power ebbing from his limbs and a pain begin to drill behind his eyes. He shook his head, to sharpen his thoughts. This would not do. Kicking his horse onwards, he wrapped the reins around his numbed hand. Ruin be damned. He would bring Joan back, and get rid of Barton, and all might still be well. He need only reach her before the news got out. No one need ever know about this, marriage or no, and with Blackbird’s help he would avert disaster. A few days hence, with Joan safe at home once more, he and the butler would be laughing to think of this moment of despair. He tried to smile at the prospect, but his mouth refused to oblige.

The horse’s canter soon slowed to a walk. Dacre’s hand was slack on the reins, his legs leaden and almost lifeless. He did not have the strength to urge the stallion on, and after ambling for a mile or two it dropped its head to crop the grass. A short time later a roar of rage and misery rose from the valley, sending crows circling above the trees. It was the baron’s last sound, his cry of defeat. Staring in horror at the narrowing sky, Joan’s letter clasped in his glove, he recognised that the darkness beginning to wrap itself around him was not the approaching night, but the end of all things.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

After a few hours’ sleep on a frosted hillside beyond reach of Naworth’s guards, Crozier made good speed as he headed north. The maid had not known the name of Dacre’s peel tower, but he had a fair idea where it would be. The baron had several outposts, kept in the hands of loyal retainers, and even on the Scottish side there were some in thrall to him, or his purse.

Across the borders countless peel towers rose, as if growing out of the bedrock. Stumps of featureless stone where clansmen could fight off attack and locals seek safety, they had no windows on the lower floors, and those on the upper levels were wide enough only for an archer to take aim. Stone-slated and smooth as ice, they were almost impregnable. Nothing but hunger or pestilence could overcome their inmates and bring them to the door.

Dacre’s alliance with the Armstrongs was well known, and Crozier headed for one of the narrow passes into Liddesdale, where the clan made their home. The baron would not be brazen enough to have a property on Armstrong land, but it was very possible he had a redoubt in the wastelands that lay between the devil’s own dale and Cumberland. It would be a tedious business finding it, but Crozier had faith in his persuasive tongue, and even more in his sword.

Neither let him down. On the edge of the woods by a hamlet north of Bewcastle he came upon a mother penning a flock of sheep which were more biddable than the three children who skirled around her heels. The woman’s face was warm with annoyance. ‘I’ll skelp youse good and hard if ye dinnae behave!’ she cried to the boys, who were tugging her apron, and goading the sheep. She looked up at the sound of Crozier’s horse, and the sight of the armed rider brought the boys to order. Fingers in their mouths, they huddled behind their mother, and a whimper was heard coming from the smallest.

Crozier smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten them, goodwife,’ he said. She looked at him, suspicion sewing her mouth tight. The borderer edged his horse closer, until he loomed over them, and explained what he was looking for. ‘A peel tower used by Baron Dacre, the man who was Warden General of the English marches.’

Disdain crossed the mother’s face. ‘I ken him well,’ she said. ‘A killer like a’ the rest.’

She turned to point east, beyond the hamlet, towards the Scottish border. ‘I couldnae say for sure, but I’ve seen him and his men skeltering down that road often enough. Could be the place you’re speiring after is out that way.’

Crozier thanked her and turned his horse back onto the track. A misty drizzle set in and he lowered his head against its clammy touch. Behind him lay rich oak and sycamore valleys, but now he was climbing onto barren, scoured hills, the march’s northernmost border scarred as an old soldier’s face by weather and raiders’ hooves. The wind quickened. The sound of whipped grasses and the forlorn cry of a curlew, tossed above the moors like a leaf, made a melancholy music that he had loved since a boy.

The first peel tower he came upon emerged out of the rain like the bole of a giant oak, dark and menacing against the sky. It looked deserted, and so it proved, after he had prowled around its weeded base, no prints of horse or man near its door.

The next tower on his path, a few miles on the English side of the border, lay in ruins, wood pigeons resting in the gaping roof, its door an empty mouth. From the knoll where it stood, Crozier could see across grey-lagged hills to the line of spartan heath that marked the boundary of Liddesdale. As he gazed, a curl of smoke met the clouded air from a hidden fireside down the valley, and he caught the smell of its oaky scent, sweet as roasting chestnuts.

Clicking his tongue, he nudged his horse on, soon coming off the moorland top and into the valley. The wisp of smoke disappeared, then was visible once more, though whether this was a trick of the rain, or of a careless hand stoking the hearth, he could not tell.

The rain turned from drizzle to downpour, and by the time he reached the slope behind which the smoke issued, the afternoon light was a bruise that would soon darken to dusk.

The fading day was in his favour. As he rounded the side of the hill, the peel tower faced him. There was no knowing if this was where Barton and Joan were hiding. Retreating and taking cover further up the valley, where trees protected him from the rain, Crozier waited for dark.

When at last he could approach the keep, he made for the stone hut some yards from the tower. In times of war, all horses would be taken into the keep, but he was in luck. The hut was housing a threadbare mule and a dappled stallion, whose pedigree went back farther, and more nobly, than that of the Dacres. Few in these parts would own such a horse. Crozier noted the expensive bridle, the rich blanket over its back, and knew he had found his quarry.

That night he slept soundly, under the pattering trees. At dawn, he rubbed down his horse, led her to the stream, and fed her oats. After lashing her reins to a tree, he made his way to the peel tower, where he crouched behind an outcrop of rock, waiting to see what daylight would bring.

Another dreary day awoke, the sky an ashen shawl. A fug of mist clung to the valley floor, and wrapped itself around the moors. Though the cold and damp were numbing Crozier did not move. Fresh smoke puffed from the tower chimney, and at last the door opened. A tall, crooked figure stepped out, an empty pack over his shoulder. Leaning on a stick, the man made for the hut, and a few minutes later he left, leading the mule towards the track at the bottom of the hill.

Late that morning he returned, the filled pack strapped across the mule’s back. He dropped the sack at the door before taking the animal into the hut. When he got there, he was unsaddling the mule when a shape stepped out from behind the straw bales stacked by the door and punched him on the side of the head. He fell, face forward, and Crozier had bound the man’s hands behind his back before he realised what was happening. ‘Keep it shut,’ the borderer said, as the man twisted his head to see his assailant. Crozier tied a rag around his mouth and dragged him to the back of the hut, where he bound his ankles. The man tried to speak through his gag, but only squawks emerged. When he felt the grip of the ropes that held him he slumped, his eyes an oily glitter that boded ill for the borderer should he ever get free.

At the keep’s door, Crozier hoisted the pack into his arms like a child, and knocked hard. After a long wait, he heard steps. The door opened a crack. ‘I’m back,’ he said gruffly, and holding the pack in front of his face, he pushed in, groaning as if with the weight of his burden.

For a second, perhaps two, he had the advantage, before Barton saw who he was. It was enough. Over the threshold, he was up the steps and into the tower. Hurling the pack behind him, knocking Barton back against the door, he ran into the hallway, saw stairs to the next floor, and took them three at a time. Barton was on his feet, and chasing, but Crozier reached the upper hall, where Joan was seated by a fire that hissed and spat. She shrieked, but Crozier was upon her before she could do more than get to her feet. Arm around her chest, he dragged her to the wall, his knife pointed at her neck.

Barton came to a halt at the entrance, panting.

‘Do something!’ cried Joan, struggling against Crozier’s hold, until the tip of his knife sliced her skin, and with a moan she felt her legs go weak, and a trickle of wet run down her leg to match the blood on her throat.

Louise was wandering through the woods, lonely without the wolf. She did not go far these days, missing his company and protection. By the stream she leaned against a fallen tree, too weighed down to hoist herself onto it. Her palm rested on her belly, and she felt a kick, one of many that had kept her awake that night. Had Crozier been there, his arm around her shoulder would have sent her back to sleep, but the empty sheet where he should have been stole slumber more surely than the unborn infant.

A wood pigeon cooed overhead, and a sharp pain shot through her stomach, making her eyes water. When it had passed, she felt sweat break out on her back. She stood, and was beginning to walk back to the keep when another stab made her gasp. She would have fallen to her knees but for knowing that once down, she might not be able to get up. Pressing a hand to her side, she stumbled through the trees. The pains should not have started so soon. There were four or five weeks before this child was meant to come into the world. Biting her lip, she pressed on.

She had reached the keep and crossed the courtyard before the next spasm. As it swept over her, she called out and leaned against the wall. Running from the stables, Hob was soon at her side, and once the pains had passed he helped her indoors. Ella, coming up from the kitchens, saw at once what was happening. Anxiety spread over her face, but as she hurried to Louise she smiled. ‘Dinnae be feart,’ she said, putting an arm around her. ‘Everything will be fine.’

Crozier smelled Joan’s fear, and saw the hand creep to her round belly, to protect what lay within. Barton took a step into the hall, knife in his hand. Ignoring Joan, he addressed himself to the borderer.

‘Let her go, Crozier. She’s just a girl. Let’s you and me settle this.’ He swiped the knife before him, as if to exercise it.

‘Married, are you?’ said Crozier. ‘What godforsaken place is this to bring your bride? You’d think you were ashamed of her.’

Joan lifted her chin. ‘We have made our vows before God. We’re married in the eyes of the church, and the law. I am of age, and we did not need a priest.’ She spoke like a noblewoman putting a peasant in his place.

‘That’s right,’ said Barton, in a tone of sarcastic triumph, ‘we’re man and wife, and nothing can part us now but death. Her father will get used to the idea. And since she’s his favourite, he’ll no cut her out of his will, now will he?’ His eyes glinted, perhaps at the prospect of the wealth that would one day be his, but more likely in anticipation of sending Crozier to his maker. He laughed. ‘Come on, what kind of man would kill me, when there’s a bairn on the way? You know yoursel, my friend, how precious the wee yins are.’

The borderer let Joan go, pushing her aside. Drawing his sword, he advanced on Barton. ‘You will be dining with your forebears tonight. You have ruined this poor lass, but that’s nothing to what you tried to do to me.’ He looked the sailor in the eye, but the man could not hold his gaze. Crozier’s voice was soft. ‘Your sweet cousin gives you a roof over your head, I find you work, yet you betray us to Dacre, slithering back to him with news of what we’re doing, like the reptile you are.’ He carved a slice in the air, sending Barton dancing backwards. ‘This is for the village, which Dacre’s men destroyed.’ Another flashing arc sent Barton staggering down the stairs, an arm against the wall to steady himself. ‘That is for the wardens you brought to our door. And now this, and all that follows, for frightening my wife near to death . . .’ The blade scythed through the silence.

‘Whoa!’ cried the sailor. ‘My wee knife against that muckle sword, it’s no a fair fight.’

‘It isn’t meant to be,’ Crozier said, forcing him down the stairs, the blade drawing closer to his windpipe with every swipe.

Barton’s eyes darted from side to side, and a slick of hair clung to his forehead, plastered on with sweat. Crozier pressed him back, step by step. The shining steel in his hand held Barton mesmerised. Too late Crozier heard the rustle of skirts behind him, and Joan’s cry as she brought a pair of bellows down on his head. There was a sparkle of brilliant light, a whirl of empty air in which his sword flailed and fell from his grip, and he tumbled down the stairs, landing in an awkward sprawl at the bottom of the steps.

Before the sailor was upon him, Crozier kicked himself backwards, till his back met the wall. He was dazed, but not hurt. His sword was out of reach, but as Barton scurried for it he lurched to his feet and threw himself on his enemy with a roar. He knocked Barton flying, the sailor’s knife skittering across the stone floor. Joan’s screams told him she was coming down the stairs, but as yet she was no threat. As Barton began to turn, the borderer thwacked him hard on the back of the head, pounding him again and again until his knuckles bled. But the sailor would not be stilled. With a groan, Barton wrenched himself from Crozier’s hold, and swung a punch that cracked his jaw. Panting, the pair closed with each other, wrestling across the floor like crabs. Joan hovered at the foot of the stairs, unable to get near to the sword or the knife.

Barton tried to get his fingers around Crozier’s throat, but the borderer’s reach was longer. His hands circled Barton’s neck. Though the sailor clawed at his wrists, Crozier’s hold on his thrapple tightened. Barton’s sinews were thick and taut as he strained against his noose, his flesh mottling purple and grey like a turkey-cock’s craw. His eyes were turning bloodshot, the whites marbling with red, and it seemed they must soon burst out of their sockets. With a guttering growl, he gave a last fierce kick, just as Crozier raised the sailor’s head, and, with a powerful twist, broke his neck.

There was a howl from the stairs, and Joan flung herself on Crozier, fists battering his head. Breathless, he staggered to his feet, and grabbed her arm. A loud slap rendered her for a moment silent; then she began to sob, a girning so abandoned it was as if she had turned feral.