After Flodden (24 page)

‘When?’ he asked, tipping the bowl up and draining the juice.

‘All Hallows’ Eve.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘That’s what the man said. He seemed very certain of the date, said Oliver. First you lot, then the rest, is what he told him. The widowed queen will have nothing to do with him, and
he’s taking matters into his own hands – as you said he would.’

‘You’re a good soul,’ said Crozier, and gave her a hug. ‘I’ll be gone by the morning,’ he added as she left. She raised a hand in goodbye, but did not
turn.

In the chill early hours he made his way to the shore road, hiding himself behind the castle’s buttresses. The young driver was the first out that morning. He slowed as Crozier stepped
out, and without a word from either, the Borderer climbed into the foulest-smelling cart in Christendom.

Gates high as a church tower closed over them as the cart rolled into the belly of the castle. It was a steep decline, and the ox slithered on cobbles wet with slime. After the sentry’s
harsh salute, there was at first no sound beyond that of the wheels and hooves. But slowly, as they descended deeper, stone gave way to beaten earth. Crozier became aware of a thickening in the
atmosphere, the sense of a denser presence than air alone. It took a moment to appreciate what was around him: the sound of a thousand men, breathing, gasping, and moaning in their sleep. The hairs
on Crozier’s neck prickled. It was as if they were in the gurgling stomach of a huge beast, like Jonah in the whale.

The cart drew to a halt. ‘Git oot,’ whispered the driver. Crozier scrambled over the side. The driver grabbed his shoulder, a hand reached down, and Crozier’s coin was snapped
shut in the young man’s fist before his passenger could get his bearings. ‘If ye need a ride oot, be here when the castle bells next ring. Otherwise, ye’re on yer ain, and guid
fortune tae ye.’

The cart rolled off, and by the time its creaking had faded, Crozier could make out shapes in the murk. A brazier high in the wall cast a rusty beam, but its reach was short. It illuminated
enough, however, to reveal cells on every side, as far as the light reached, and no doubt much farther. As he approached the first grilled door, the prisoners’ breathing grew louder. He
paused. A pale hand gripped the bars, and deep-socketed eyes stared out.

‘Bread,’ said the inmate, reaching out talons.

‘I have none,’ said Crozier. ‘I am sorry.’

The eyes closed, and Crozier drew closer. Behind the grille lay a stone vault, the floor a tangled skein of bodies. Some were sitting, knees drawn up, others lay their length. A few were asleep,
and more were unconscious, but some were awake, staring dull-eyed into space. As he peered he felt their gaze lock onto him. The nightsoil cart had cloyed his senses, but he became aware of a
different smell, bittering the air. It was the iron salt of blood and sweat, of filthy clothes, and mouths so parched they had swollen beyond speech.

He touched the fingers at the bars. ‘I have nothing for you, God forgive me. But I need your help.’ The eyes opened. ‘I am looking for a soldier, from the Scottish army. Name
of Benoit Brenier. French, but speaks like a Scotsman. A short, square man, with a face that is pitted from an old pox. His sister is desperate for news.’

The eyes flickered, and after what felt like an age the prisoner turned and spoke to the men behind him. A current of interest ran through the room, before ebbing. The man turned back.

‘No,’ he said in a rasping whisper. ‘No-one of that name here.’ He closed his eyes, and Crozier heard him swallow. The sound was close to a rattle, and they both knew his
time was short.

Down the tunnel he went, from grille to grille, and always the same reply. No Brenier known to any. At one door, the request startled a man awake so violently, he began screaming, a panic that
set the wounded in all the cells groaning and girning. Crozier’s jaw clenched. He was in the very bowels of hell, and could do nothing for these wretches. Some needed no more than a good meal
and fresh air; others might recover if a surgeon with a clean knife could be found to pare away rotten flesh or saw off splintered bone. But for too many, life was seeping away by the hour. There
was likely a cold logic to it: the longer the prison held onto them, the fewer the authorities had to deal with in the courts, and on the gallows.

Crozier felt sick. And as he proceeded down the passage, where the air grew warmer and riper, his head began to swim. The men he had spoken to were from all parts of Scotland and a few prisoners
were French, no doubt deeply regretting their part in coaching the Scottish troops. Some had been here only since the battle, but a few had been locked up following Lord Hume’s ill-judged
raid across the border in August, when the English had surprised his cocksure, greedy men, who had been intent only on grabbing what they could for themselves. In what proved to be an omen for the
following month’s encounter, the English roundly routed them.

The figure at the next grille was more sinew than flesh, his rags as holed as lace, but his eyes were unclouded and his voice, though weak, was clear.

‘Been in here over a year,’ he told Crozier. ‘A small personal matter between me and Lord Dacre that I doubt will end well. I don’t expect to last another year. Not that
I’d want to.’

Crozier repeated his description of Benoit, and the man shrugged.

‘We might have the man you want,’ he said and beckoned into the gloom.

Slowly the limbs on the floor parted as a figure stepped over them.

‘Man here asking questions you might be able to answer, Ben,’ said the grille-keeper.

Crozier strained to see who was approaching from the press of bodies. The form was as Louise had suggested – squat, sturdy, youthful – but when the face presented itself at the bars,
he recoiled. The man had only one eye, the other hidden by a head-dress black with blood.

‘Benoit?’ asked Crozier, reaching a hand towards the maimed man. ‘Are you Louise’s brother?’

‘What good’ll it do me if I say yes?’ asked the man, in a faint French accent.

Crozier blinked. ‘Nothing. Nothing tonight, at least. Your sister needs to know you are alive. She is worried to death. And she has powerful friends who may be able to help you.’

The man spat, the spittle clearing the grille and landing at Crozier’s feet. ‘Fat use that is. There’s no help for any of us in here. We either die in these pits, or they hang
us. Or if they are feeling merciful, they might send us as slaves across the seas. What use can a woman be in these circumstances?’

Crozier hesitated before speaking. ‘Have you any message for her I can take back? Any private signal that only she will know, to prove you are her brother?’

The man cleared his throat. ‘You can piss off. You want secret passwords, like a child, and I want liberty and the sight back in my eye. I’m not playing your games. Tell my sister
that the day she rides in here and blows the lock off this door, then I’ll have something to say to her. Until then, wish her adieu, and kiss her pretty little cheek for me, and anything else
that takes your fancy.’

He turned, and hobbled back across the cell. Crozier put a hand against the wall, to steady his thoughts. Was this Benoit?

The grille-keeper sidled back to his post. ‘There’s naught more kept down here,’ he said. ‘You’ve seen them all. There’s the oubliette, but nobody gets to see
those poor souls. Anyway, only the worst criminals are dropped in there.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Ben the lad, he’s not right in the head now. None of us is. He’s been a
hireling soldier since he were a boy, and he’d hoped to be a free man by now. He has not taken kindly to his fate. He meant no harm by what he said.’

Crozier dug out his last coin, and pressed it into his hand. ‘Get the warder to bring fresh food and drink for you and him and your companions,’ he said. ‘I thank you. And I
pray for you.’

The prisoner’s nails scratched his palm as he took the coin. He pressed his face against the bars, and his breath warmed Crozier’s cheek: ‘Tell folks up in the living world
about us. It’s like being buried alive down here. The worst is thinking you’ve been forgotten. We could die at peace if it weren’t for that.’

‘I will, my friend,’ said the Borderer, keeping his voice steady with an effort. ‘That at least I can do for you.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

8 October 1513

When Crozier reached the keep, day was fading. Smoke rose from the kitchen fires, deepening the dusk. He dismounted on the path that led to the gate, and filled his lungs with
the scent of woodland. He walked briskly. He had ridden through relentless rain, but beneath his sodden cloak his hose and tunic dripped from the dousing he had taken in the river Tweed, as he
scrubbed away the nightsoil cart’s stench. No amount of water, though, could clear the gaol from his mind. He shivered, and rubbed his hands.

In the keep’s yard he found his mother, arms folded. The bosses on her wimple quivered like the horns of an angered cow. ‘A fine thing to do, laddie,’ she said, ‘leaving
me these past days with two turtle doves from the city, and a boy with a stomach as deep as a well. If he is here much longer, I will need to bring out the salted beef.’

‘It was necessary, mother,’ he said. ‘They’ll be gone soon, believe me.’ He led the mare to the water trough. ‘Has the king’s man got to his feet
yet?’

‘Yes, although the way he looks at that girl, he’d maybe prefer to be on his back a while longer.’

An expression of distaste crossed her son’s face, but he said nothing as he made for the stables.

Hob emerged, a bristle brush in one hand, a half-eaten apple in the other. Since coming to the keep he had changed from a white-faced child to a ruddy, bright-eyed stable-boy. ‘Evening,
sir,’ he said, looking at the horse and not the man. Crozier hesitated, then handed over the reins. ‘Do you know how to rub her down?’ he asked. ‘She needs a good drubbing.
It’s been a long ride.’

Hob nodded, as he led her to her stall. ‘I looked after my faither’s cuddies and horses. I know one end frae the other.’

‘I’ll be back shortly,’ said Crozier. ‘See she gets a good feed too.’

‘Aye, aye.’

In the great hall, Louise sat on the fireside’s lip, the vixen at her feet. When she saw Crozier, she rose. The hounds raced to greet their master, but with a curt command he sent them
back to their places. His face tightened at the scene. From a winged seat in front of the fire, the courtier eyed him. His arm dangled over the chair, his emerald ring brighter in the tallow-light
than the narrowed eyes above them. A less prosaic man might have read a threat in the ease with which the stranger occupied his hearth. Crozier saw only insolence, the braggadocio of a royal fop
whose tricks, in this place, were useless.

He addressed Louise, who had guessed the message from his weary step: ‘Ma’am, I have no success to report. No-one matching your brother’s description lies in the gaol. No-one,
indeed, had heard of him, or knew him.’

Louise made a sound, and sat down again by the fire. She washed her hands in her lap. ‘Nothing?’ she said, ‘No-one?’

Crozier moved towards her, but the courtier was faster. He was out of the chair and crouching beside the girl, a hand on her shoulder. ‘This may be good news, dear heart,’ he said.
‘He may be well, and free.’

Crozier cut across him. ‘Or he may be in Durham. That is where I’m told the fitter prisoners were taken. And I heard word, in the town, that the column Benoit fought with under Lord
Home was the first to be despatched there, few of them though there were.’

Louise nodded, but her head was loud with racing thoughts. Durham was bad news. Healthy prisoners were for the scaffold, an example to the world. Her hands tumbled faster, until Gabriel covered
them with his own. ‘Be still,’ he said, ‘and keep faith. We will find him.’

He had said as much the day before, words of comfort now carved into her heart. That morning Wat had packed the courtier’s head-dress tight with moss, and freshly bandaged his arm. After
two days’ rest and Mother Crozier’s chicken broth, he was almost recovered. ‘Reckon you can take a turn round the yard,’ said his nurse. ‘I’ll be watching youse,
mind.’

With a hand on Louise’s shoulder to steady him, Gabriel stepped into the courtyard. He straightened his back, turned his face to the sky, and closed his eyes. Louise felt a sigh, almost a
shudder, run through him. He was still for so long, she grew alarmed, and put a hand on his back.

‘Sir, are you feeling quite well?’

‘Hmm?’ The courtier opened his eyes and looked down at her.

‘Are you giddy?’

‘By no means,’ he said. ‘A little light-headed, perhaps, but strong, my sweet. I feel very strong, thanks to your care and kindness.’

‘I have done nothing,’ she said, her colour rising.

‘You have helped me, and may yet help me, more than you will ever know.’

His smile wiped the harsh lines from his face, leaving a glimpse of the boy he had been not so many years before. Louise felt her pulse quicken. There was a gentleness about this man, despite
his superior and self-important air, that made her want to know him better. Unlike most of the men she had met, he appeared to notice what other people were feeling. That he had ridden to the
Borders in search of her, solely at her mother’s request, suggested he was kind as well as sensitive. She could think of no other acquaintance who would have done as much.