After Flodden (25 page)

‘Come,’ he said, ‘let us walk. I have almost lost the use of my legs trapped as I’ve been in that wretched little cell. And I don’t imagine you have been having a
great time of it either, in this cold, benighted place.’

‘They have been more hospitable than I expected . . . ’ Louise began.

Gabriel laughed. ‘Ah yes. The famous Border charm has been busy at work, I see. No, no, ’ – he raised a hand, as if to ward off protestations. ‘I like your open heart.
You see the good in people. You draw it out, too. Me,’ – he gave a rueful grimace – ‘I trust no-one until they have earned it. They sense that, the way an animal smells
fear. Our good host Crozier, for instance. His nose wrinkles like a hound on a fox’s trail each time he sees me. He knows I understand what he and his men are up to. How they plot, and steal,
and deceive.’

He squeezed her shoulder, to concede a point. ‘They are not wholly bad, I grant you that, not entirely rotten. But their kindnesses would cease the minute it compromised their own plans,
you can be very sure of that. And they are not honourable men in the sense we understand it. They have no allegiance to the king, or their country. They watch out only for themselves. To such
people, we are as much the enemy as the English.’

Louise looked troubled. No-one could deny the Borderers had manhandled them cruelly when they were ambushed, and their behaviour had been outrageous. And yet, she did not see them as he did.
Perhaps she was too trusting. Benoit often used to say she needed to learn that people were not always what they appeared to be.

Gabriel guided her towards the keep’s gatehouse. ‘Sit here for a while,’ he said. The absent guard’s seat was narrow and cold, with barely room for them both. The
courtier’s padded jerkin, with its puffed-up shoulders, the jut of his elbow in its sling, made for a tight squeeze. The closeness of this man, the rich linen scent of him, made her nervous. She could not meet his eyes, and stared at her filthy toecaps. Was this how Marguerite had felt when she
was first alone with the king? She had spoken of the fluttering heart and lightness of head, of how, when James had first kissed her –

Her thoughts were broken as Gabriel drew breath with a hiss. She looked up. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, pressing a hand to his forehead, his eyes screwed tight. ‘The merest
twinge.’ The pain subsided, and he relaxed. ‘For all his many faults, that man Wat is a good physician. A few days more, and I will be fit. Then we can be away from here.’

There was silence as Louise weighed up her response. Sparrows twittered from their ivy redoubt by the gate. As children, she and Benoit had lain under hedgerows, still as sticks, watching these
birds going about their domestic chores a hand’s reach away, oblivious or unconcerned at their presence. Nesting time was best, when the chittering and fluttering were busiest. But even on
quiet autumn days they were good company, their ceaseless chatter preferable by far to the roaring, reeling talk of Leith’s boatmen that breached their shutters day and night, and made them
long for the country.

The memory made Louise’s eyes sting. When she replied, her voice was firmer than she felt.

‘My lord, you have been an excellent friend to me, and my mother, but I must leave here long before that. Unless Crozier finds Benoit in the Berwick gaol, I have to go back to Flodden and
pick up whatever news I can of him.’

Gabriel turned towards her, but she kept her gaze on the flagstones. A warm look would destroy her resolve.

‘My child,’ he said, taking her hand and pressing it between his, ‘don’t you think you stand a better chance of tracing your brother with my help? Two minds are better
than one. As are two horses. And it’s not safe in these parts for a military man, as we’ve already seen, let alone a defenceless young woman. Let’s wait for Master Crozier’s
return. When we have his news, we will know better how to proceed. But be assured of this.’ His voice grew grave, and he put a finger under her chin, turning her face towards him. At last she
met his eyes. She searched their depths for something she could not name, nor find.

‘Be assured,’ he repeated, ‘that finding your brother is, from this moment, as important to me as it is to you. I will do everything in my power to help trace him, and give you
the heart’s ease you seek.’

Louise felt tears gathering, but before they could spill, the courtier bent, and pressed his mouth to hers. The sense of a protector was so longed for that thankful tears broke free. She raised
her hand to touch his cheek, but by then he had released her, leaving his salt taste on her lips, and a memory that would keep her awake that night, and many more. He stood abruptly, and walked out
of the gateway, beyond the walls.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, his back to her. ‘I lost myself for a moment.’ His words were terse.

Seen from behind, his soldierly figure was daunting. It was as if a stranger had stepped into his clothes. Louise reached his side, unsure what to say. She touched his arm.

‘I am full to the brim with Master Wat’s possets and potions,’ he said. ‘I am not in my right mind. What I did was . . . ’

‘You did not want to kiss me? It was only the work of drugs?’

She tugged at his sleeve. ‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘Please.’

He turned and grasped her by the shoulders, as if he were about to shake her. ‘Of course I wanted to. You are a beautiful girl, and uncommonly brave too. I have never met a woman like you.
But this is no time for such a business. And you and I, we are from different worlds. We cannot . . . ’

‘I know my family is not grand,’ she said, bridling at the reminder, ‘but . . . ’

‘No!’ He almost barked the word. ‘That is not what I mean. My family is nothing to boast about. Titles are meaningless. There’s as many scoundrels who can claim an
escutcheon as you’ll find among a galley’s hands.’ His voice quietened, and he let her go. ‘I meant only that we come from very different circumstances, and our aims and
hopes in life are leagues apart. I could not ask you to . . . ’

‘To . . . ?’

He shook his head, dismissing his thoughts as if they were buzzing around his ears. ‘No, Louise. I am gentleman enough, despite what’s just happened, not to commit you, or me, to
anything at a time like this. Your mind cannot be clear while you are searching for Benoit; and I must not, and will not, take advantage of that.’

He looked up to the treetops, his mouth settling into a grim line. ‘Shameful though it is to admit, I am still plagued by the battlefield. It dogs my dreams, it makes me liverish, it
clouds my thoughts. It would not be fair to make a contract now, when neither of us is steady. When Benoit has been found, and brought home safe; when this nightmarish year is past, perhaps then we
can pick up these feelings once more.’

No words could have won Louise over more completely. In putting her brother before their desire, in postponing whatever hopeful future lay ahead for them together, he had captured her affections
in a way no fulsome declaration ever could. She walked into his arms and laid her head on his chest, holding him close, as if she would never let him go. As they stood like that, each found a
comfort beyond words.

*    *    *

The intimacy of that moment was in the air as Crozier looked down on the pair at his fireside. At once he guessed how things stood. So tired his bones ached, he felt as if his
last reserves had been drained. His vision narrowed, and as Louise began to speak, he had trouble concentrating. She faltered at his vacant expression, and he raised a hand to quieten her.

‘We can talk more over dinner. Things may be more hopeful than you fear. Surrey would never order the mortally ill to be carted all the way to Durham. Whatever the English have planned for
these prisoners – and it won’t be good, I must warn you – if Benoit is one of them, it gives us some time. There’s a great deal to discuss. But first I must see to other,
more pressing matters.’

He left, without casting as much as a glance towards the courtier, who had been watching the Borderer as if hoping his face would reveal secrets he would not commit to words. Murdo Montgomery,
who had been sitting in a corner, whittling a pipe while watching the couple, emerged from the gloom. He followed his master through the door that led to Crozier’s rooms, and that of his
men.

‘I dinnae trust yon fella,’ he said, as the latch dropped behind them. ‘Reckon he’d whip the food from under yer nose, and take yer place as lord of the keep if he saw a
mousehole’s chance.’

‘What else would you expect from one of the king’s hired men?’ said Crozier. ‘Fortunately, I do not intend for him to be here long enough to get his feet under the
table.’

In the deepest chamber of the keep, Crozier gathered his men. This was the Croziers’ armoury, its doors as thick as the keep’s walls. As the men pressed around him, he reported the
gossip from Berwick, and his certainty that Dacre was planning a most serious revenge. In turn, he heard Murdo’s reports from their scouts. Messages warning of the All Hallows’ Eve
threat had been sent out across the eastern, middle and western marches, not excluding Liddesdale and the Elliots, though, as Old Crozier chipped in, the scout had been so reluctant to discharge
his duty towards them, the watchmen on Hermitage Castle’s gate had been obliged to prise the paper from his glove. Since returning to the village, he had drunk himself into a stupor.
‘We’ll hae no use of him for anither day or two,’ said Murdo.

‘Wretched fool,’ said Crozier in a voice barbed as gorse. He stared around the room, at each of his men in turn. None could hold his wintry gaze. Haggard, red-veined, lined and
scarred, their faces emerged as from an oil canvas against a backdrop of strife. Arranged around the walls was an array of pikes, swords and knives plentiful enough for a small army. There were
halberds, gloves and helmets, all cast in steel, and from hooks in the ceiling hung chain mail headgear and breastplates for their horses.

A crate of lead shot was at Crozier’s side, and as he spoke he juggled a ball from one hand to the other, as if to prepare the missile for the feel of flesh. He spoke so quietly he might
have been addressing none but himself, but each word was a command that no-one dare ignore. Crozier was a fair man, but everyone in that room had seen how he could behave when angered. His slowness
to wrath made him more to be feared than a firebrand. So too his punishments. He was no bully; he never lashed out with his fists or knife, though his words could wound. The cold shoulder was his
finest weapon. Duties were removed from offenders, as were privileges. If the sin was severe, the culprit could find himself banished, as when Murdo had been posted to the coastlands for a year and
set to work on a fishing skiff, for blabbing the Crozier family secrets in the village; Swire, the pig hand, was exiled indefinitely to the care of distant kin in the outer isles, after slicing off
the ear of a stable-hand in a fight over a servant girl. And even his own brother, Tom, had felt the force of Crozier’s fury, when he had been forbidden to leave the keep’s grounds for
a six-month after one too many raids of his neighbours’ prize sheep – sequestered, that is, only after he had returned his booty and suffered the beating from his astonished victims
that Crozier later said he roundly deserved.

Remembering this, and more, the men listened well as Crozier spoke. ‘None of us is to touch a drop of spirits until this matter has come to a head,’ he said. ‘There will be no
drunkenness. There will be no shirking. We are about to come under attack. God willing, not before the end of the month, but whatever Dacre and Surrey have planned for the Borders, it is likely a
separate, and worse fate is being prepared for us. I doubt they will mete that out before that date – why waste good men on an unnecessary expedition, when they can deal with both affairs in
one? Even so, we cannot be sure when they will descend. So as of tonight, we stand a twenty-four-hour guard on the walls, and a dawn-to-dusk vigil in the watchtower at the valley pass. We get our
gear in order. Clean the culverins and get them into position on the battlements. Sharpen the blades. Fill the vats with oil.’

He spoke without pause for an hour. Supplies were to be laid down in case of siege. Hay and water stored in the great hall, should the stables be destroyed. The village warned of what might be
heading its way, and given help to plan a refuge. Cattle, goats and sheep moved to the pastures nearest the walls. The trees encircling the keep felled, but not cleared, where they would act like
spillikins and wrong-step advancing horses and men alike.

On and on the orders continued. Crozier spoke more like a general than a Borders outlaw. At the threat of impending danger, his men grew sharper witted, their spines stiffer, their minds more
military. By the end of the conference Crozier’s Keep was on a footing for war.

It was a sombre dinner that night. Crozier’s men supped in near silence, and Mother Crozier offered a plainsong of sighs from her stool by the fire. The food, however, was as tempting as
ever, testimony to a creative talent beneath the scowls. Louise smothered a smile as Hob licked his fingers and pushed back his dish, almost before the others had lifted a spoon. Not until his men
had melted into the night to start their tasks did Crozier turn his attention to her.

He looked first at Gabriel. ‘You are recovering, I believe?’ he asked.

‘Indeed I am,’ said the courtier, with something like a grateful smile. ‘Thanks to Wat’s knowledge and skill. He would be invaluable in an Edinburgh hospice. Never more
so than in these times.’

‘He has enough to do here,’ said Crozier, shortly.

He looked at Louise, her sleeve brushing the courtier’s as she wiped her dish clean with bread. Crozier leant forward and poured a ruby wine into her cleared bowl, and a generous splash
into Gabriel’s tankard, which he drained off at once.

He addressed Louise, but as if to acknowledge the bond between the pair, he included Gabriel in his glance. ‘We cannot know, of course, if Benoit was taken to Durham. My best advice to you
would be to go home now, and leave well alone. However, little though I know you, I suspect you will ignore that, and go your own way. Which would be dangerous. What I propose, therefore, is that
tomorrow I set out, with one of my men, to Durham, and scout around there, as I did in Berwick. If your brother is indeed a prisoner, I will be back with the news in a week or so. At that time, we
can plot how to rescue him. In the meantime, if a way can be found, I can smuggle a letter in to him, for good cheer’s sake.’