A Chorus of Innocents (17 page)

Tuesday 17th October 1592

The boy went to sleep eventually and Elizabeth dressed and left him there to go to see his mother. The father wasn't there and she had bruises on her wrist and the bruise on her face was the shape of a hand. At least it was an open one.

Not thinking about Sir Henry with great difficulty, Elizabeth sat down on the stool the woman offered her.

“Now, Mrs Tait,” she said, “your lad Jimmy has a beautiful voice, hasn't he?”

The woman smiled and her face changed from its watchful shut-in look.

“Ay,” she said, “The minister heard him once when he was scaring crows and singing the Twa Corbies to frighten them and then nothing would do but that he'd go tae the school and learn his letters and sing for the minister. My man didna like it at first, but after a while he said it was fair enough since he got bread and cheese at the school to his dinner and so he didn't need so much as Young Jock and Lily and the babby.”

There was no babby visible. The woman coloured and paled. “He died, the babby. In the spring. Eh…he fell over and…hit his head and that was the end of him.”

I don't think so
, thought Elizabeth, but didn't say,
I think he annoyed his dad and got hit too hard.

The woman wasn't looking at her. “Young Jock's the apple of his eye mind, but…” She shrugged and looked away and gave her sore bruised wrist a rub. Well, to business. It looked like Elizabeth was following in Jamie Burn's footsteps but no matter. There were worse ones she could choose.

“I think your young Jimmy could go to the cathedral in Carlisle and be a singer at the services there. How old is he?”

“About seven, I think. He came before the Armada, any road.”

“Well he's young, but that's no hindrance. Did the minister speak of this with you?”

“He talked to Jock about sending Jimmy to Carlisle,” said the woman, “And Jock wanted money for the boy.”

“Really?”

“To…to replace him as a crow scarer, ye ken. And his labour in the fields when he got big. And…”

“What did the minister say to that?”

“He said he'd think about it and we left it at that.”

“When did he talk to you about it?”

“About a month ago, when we were sowing the winter wheat.”

Elizabeth drew a deep breath and let it out again. “What did Mr Tait need the money for?”

“He wants a new helmet, he said.”

“How much?”

“Ten pounds.”

It was outrageous. Fifty shillings for the boy would have been the going rate, but ten pounds? Tait was clearly a canny father with a good grasp of bargaining.

“I see.”

“And the minister got him down fra twenty. I dinna think the minister had ten pounds but maybe he saw a way to get it, ye ken,” said the woman in a whisper.

“Oh? What way was that?”

The whisper was so tiny, so soft, Elizabeth couldn't quite make it out. “What?”

“The old way,” she said, a little louder. “The way the minister's brother Geordie would get it, or any one o' Ralph o' the Coates' boys. The way Jock would hisself. Reiving or killing. Insight.”

“Ah,” said Elizabeth. After a moment she rose to go. “Thank you, Mrs Tait, that's very helpful. I'll think about the money.”

She didn't have ten pounds herself; it was an enormous sum, although a reasonably respectable suit would cost you ten times that. But you'd get the suit on credit and pay for it over six months or a year. She felt quite dizzy again as she walked up the hill from the Taits' farm and had to stop for a moment at some stones from a peel tower destroyed in the Rough Wooing.

There wasn't a lot of reiving now in the Scots East March, or the English East March, most of the trouble happened in the West or Middle March. The Humes held sway in Scotland and dealt with troublemakers their way, the Widdringtons and the Fenwicks were strong enough to deal with troublemakers in England. Blackrent was another matter. Occasionally you'd get a big invasion, forty or eighty men from the Middle March might come riding into a valley at night and take all the stock and insight that wasn't locked inside a wall, and ride off again. Then there'd be the usual arguments over it at the next Warden's Day and eventually it would all be composed, but nobody would get back all they had lost or expect to.

Murders happened, too, mainly for not paying blackrent or for revenge. And yet when you thought about it, what had been the reason for Jamie Burn to get his head taken off? A pastor didn't pay blackrent and revenge…

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed as she stared at some large stones leaned on even older ones. Revenge might well be a reason, especially given the way the minister had been spoken of. Perhaps it was for something he did when he was younger.

She realised that one of the rocks in the grey light was not a rock, but a straight back wrapped in a wolf fur. It was too small to be a man so after she stepped back she stepped forward again. Who was it? It turned a little face under a shock of white hair and a linen cap a little sideways, with a fine Edinburgh hat on top of that.

“Ma'am, Lady Hume?” she asked, in astonishment, “what are you doing here?”

“Well I like it here, my dear. Do ye not know it's a faerie fort? At night the stones all float together and build themselves up again and then ye can dance and sing with the lairds and the ladies too, dance yer heart out and then in the morning it's grey and fifty years ha' passed ower yer head and ye're an old woman and al' the lairds and ladies are deid and gone and passed.”

Elizabeth looked about for Kat Ridley and saw her, sitting on another moth-eaten old wolfskin, some way back, watching carefully. A little further off was a lad with two ponies, a palfrey and a jennet, nice animals both of them.

Lady Hume seemed to be waiting for something as the late afternoon squelched away, sitting patiently and bolt upright, her head a little tilted on her ruff. Elizabeth moved round to where Kat Ridley sat, knitting away at a pair of socks.

“Er…”

“She's waiting for the fairy fort to build itself—she does it when she's like this. She willna have nathing but to come here and wait till night for the fair fort and she usually dozes off and then she'll go hame quite happily. Cousin William's no' far away, he bides out o' sight for she doesnae like a man too near when she's awa' wi' the fairies like she is the day.”

“Ah. Do you know whose tower this was?”

“Ay, it were the Taits', pulled down by Wharton, and his grandfather hanged by the gateposts.”

“You mean Jock Tait, in the village, his grandfather?”

“Ay, who else would I mean, there's nae ithers round here. There may be some distant cousins in Upper Tynedale, but this was their easternmost tower and a fine place it was.”

Elizabeth was starting to understand.

“The grandfather?” she asked.

“Nay, the eldest son,” said Kat Ridley, “Hanged next tae his father to learn 'em for being reivers and Scotch forbye. By Lord Wharton in 1544.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“It wisnae a bad match for a Burn girl, mind, and she wis the pick o'the Border then, a little delicate girl with white blonde hair, so I hear, but then after it was all over and we were picking up the pieces and building turf bothies, she was seen by one of the younger sons of the Laird Hume of Norwood and it wisnae a good match for him but it wisnae so bad the old Laird forbade it for a younger son so they married. Then when the elder brother died of a fever, she became Lady Hume.”

Elizabeth moved back and sat next to Lady Hume, erect and still as the twilight came down.

“It's aye hard,” said the old lady, “I allus doze off and I wake and the music's still ringing in my heid, Chevy Chase, and my feet are tapping and a foul spell's come upon me for I'm an old woman again.”

Elizabeth could think of nothing to say to that. She started to hum Chevy Chase, though, the repetitive song so you could hear the verses. Lady Hume smiled and nodded at her.

“Ay, ye're right, it's like that. And who're ye, girl?”

“Lady Widdrington?”

“Och, ye've got an ill man to wed there, if it's the Henry I knew. He liked breaking the wings of birds when I saw him when he wis a child, but he's terrible afeared of heights.”

“I didn't know that.”

“He allus kept it secret. And the puir minister. He shouldnae have gone back to the reiving, should he?”

“Did he?”

A sharp elbow went into Elizabeth's ribs. “Och, ye know he did, he was out last month in the Middle March. Couldnae keep hisself from it, could he? Once a reiver, allus a reiver, I say.”

Elizabeth nodded. “You're right. But he must have reived the wrong cattle.”

Lady Hume giggled at that. “In a manner o' speakin', aye, that's why they killt him so gentle. Not hanging so he danced for half an hour like my Archie, but off wi' his brainpan.”

“Do you know who did it, Lady Hume?”

She just frowned. And then she stopped and sighed and turned her head as the stars came out in a couple of gaps in the clouds. “Ay, d'ye hear the music? Ay?” She sat rapt, her eyes shut, her head nodding slightly to the beat of the silent music. After a while she drew in a deep breath and sighed it out again.

She dropped off to sleep then, curled over and down like a small animal, laid her head in Elizabeth's lap and went to sleep with a smile on her face.

Elizabeth sat and thought. Killed him so gentle: compared with many a Border killing or indeed a judicial death with no drop and a long choking death on the end of a rope, it was a gentle death. Paradoxically because it was hard to think of anything much more brutal than a knife under the ribs followed by a long sharpened metal bar coming around and cutting half your head off, but yes, it had been a quick death and a clean one. Almost a kind one, as such things were reckoned on the Borders.

That was interesting. It was also interesting that Lady Hume had been the first to know, seeing she was a Burn and some kind of aunt to Jamie Burn. Somebody must have told her, or she was a witch or the faery folk had told her.

You could but ask. Elizabeth stroked the old head in her lap, pushed the white hair back and straightened the cap and took off the hat which was getting slightly crushed. It was a respectable hat.

“Lady Hume,” she asked softly. “Lady Hume, who was it told you Jamie was dead?”

She asked a few more times and was about to give up when Lady Hume moved her head and answered with her eyes tight shut.

“They did, ma'am, the two men that killed him. They rode over and told me all about it and I was sick and sorry for it, that I was, but I knew Jamie had been out the month before and I knew what he was at and…that's why they tellt me. It was a way too high for him and me, I know it now. And they rade away intae the night and I went to horse meself the next morning for it wouldna be right for the minister to be unburied, no matter what.”

“What was it? What had he done?”

“Ay, it was terrible, how he was, part of his head had rolled a way but I brought it back tae his body.”

Her eyes were still shut, was she awake? “He's dancing with me now, ye know, he's dancing and laughing and his head's back together again, dancing along of all the ither people, like my Archie Tait and the people in the wood and the archers and the English archer and a' the puir folk we couldna feed for the English had burned their fields and their goods and they had nothing and they starved and died. They're all dancing with me here now.”

“Who were the men? Can you tell me that at least?”

“Och, I don't know, I couldna tell ye any more, it's hard to tell all o' them now. Not Geordie, that's sure.”

“But…”

“And they're bringing in the boar's head now and we're singing for it,” said Lady Hume, eyes tight shut, the night making it hard even to see her face, and she started humming a version of the Boar's Head Carol.

Elizabeth sat with her until her arm was cramped and her bum had gone numb from sitting on the rock. Kat Ridley came with a blanket and behind her the broad silent man who nodded and said “ma'am” to Elizabeth, and then took the old lady in his large strong arms. Kat held her while he mounted his horse and then handed her up to him with her hat and he rode off northwards to the castle.

Elizabeth looked impatiently at Kat Ridley. “Do you know who came to her to tell her Jamie Burn was dead? Do you know their names?”

“Nay, ma'am, I told ye, I took the washing down to the washerwoman and I didna…”

“They came at night.”

That gave Kat Ridley pause. She put her head on one side. “No,” she said, though Elizabeth thought she was lying, “I must have been asleep.”

“Were you?”

“Ay.”

“And do you know what the minister was at a month ago?”

An almost invisible shake of the head. “Nay, ma'am, he wouldna tell me, ainly herself.”

Elizabeth sighed and said good-bye to the woman who was only doing what she was told, trudged on through the night to the manse where she found Young Henry and all four of the cousins anxiously waiting for her and found herself being scolded by him for wandering around the village on her own.

“Don't be daft, Young Henry,” she laughed. “I'll come to no harm…”

“Ma'am, a man punched ye in the heid and knocked you out a day or two ago, how do ye know they're not still here?”

“Well he…”

“They might still be after whatever it was they was looking for and…they might see ye and think it's a great time to find out where it is, or kidnap you and make us give it them, whatever it is.”

“Oh.” Now she thought of it, she had been careless. “I'm sorry, Henry, you're right. I started in daylight and went down to see the Taits and then came back and met Lady Hume at the old burnt peel tower and got overtaken by dusk. I never thought of that.”