Dacre's War (18 page)

Blackbird nodded grimly. ‘That, at least, is straightforward. The place is awash with thieves. Ridding the dales of a few of them will be no more painful than emptying your rivers of pike.’

Dacre shrugged with irritation. ‘But not all thieves are my enemies, as ye well know. They might be rogues of the first degree, but I need to keep their kin on my side. If to maintain the trust of the king I make these families suffer, I will start losing influence here. Who knows where that could lead.’

Absently, the baron ate the bread, and drained the ale. Some colour returned to his cheeks. Neither man said anything, listening instead to the marsh wind whistling at the window, filling the room with the scent of peat and reeds, a reminder of the wilds beyond.

After a while Blackbird bent to stoke the fire, and spoke with his back to his master. ‘The executions must be managed in such a way that your closest allies are protected. Warned too, perhaps. And since you are master of your own courts, that, surely, is easily arranged. As for the edict to pay out to those who seek financial redress for their losses, there is an obvious solution, by my reckoning. One certain and simple way to save your skin.’

Crouched by the grate, the butler stared at the kindling sticks as if he wished they were the king’s bones. A gallows smile crossed his face. ‘Seems to me, only those without fear would dare come to you for compensation. Their pleas will be heard in your courts. And you and your men will be present at those hearings. I wouldn’t much like to face you or, for that matter, your brothers, if I were bringing a claim on your purse.’

‘Some would still have the nerve. They breed them tough in these parts.’

‘They might try it once, my lord, but an example must be set. And if you, being so busy, are unable to teach the east and middle marches a lesson yourself, I am sure there are those who would willingly do it for you.’

Blackbird fed a fistful of dry leaves into the fire, and at last it began to glow. He stood up, to find Dacre nodding. ‘One lesson to teach them all,’ the baron said, so softly he might have been speaking to himself, or merely making sure the wind did not carry his words beyond the room and warn any of what was to come.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

November 1523

The Duke of Albany brushed snow from the brim of his helmet and cursed the northern gods. Behind him rode a dejected line of soldiers, the remains of the four thousand who had set siege to the castle of Wark, on the English border, three days before. Had it not been for the weather, Albany would have taken the prize, of that he was sure. But never had there been a country so often held to ransom by the elements. Just when he and his men were in position to assault the castle walls, the River Tweed began to swell. One minute the water flowed smoothly between its banks; the next it was thickening with waves, backing up and piling in upon each other like a crowd at a dog fight, until the river bed was swamped, and the fields on both sides swimming with dirty brown water and half-drowned rats.

On the Scottish banks they barely had time to pull their artillery to safety, but by then the game was over. Alexander Wedderburn, Albany’s dour guide, told him that until the Tweed subsided, it would mean certain death to launch their attack. ‘It’ll suck youse in like quicksands,’ he said. ‘There’s gey few rivers as crabbit as this. It’s seen mair corpses this year alane than the pauper’s pit.’

Disgruntled, Albany was preparing to sit out the delay in the comfort of Home Castle, whose cellars were famed on both sides of the border, when word arrived that the Earl of Surrey was fast approaching, with an army as large as his.

So now, on the advice of his timorous Scots lieutenants, he was in retreat, turning tail like a hound that has been whipped and sent to its kennel. Under his ice-crusted helmet, Albany seethed. Had it been possible to peer further than a foot ahead, his men would have seen a face curdled with fury. Gone were the duke’s good looks and charm, in their place a glower that threatened any who fell into his sights. His French troops would have fought, but it seemed the Scots had lost their stomach for a fight along with most of their men that long-ago day at Flodden.

Half a week later, when at last the army reached Edinburgh Castle, Albany could barely speak for cold. The final ten miles had passed in a blur of loathing, for the country and its people but most of all for his own idiocy in taking on the regent’s role. Cursing like a sailor into his beard, he swore it would take a miracle to keep him in Scotland much longer. When he dismounted by the castle walls he threw the reins to a stableboy, who stood shivering in the sleet, awaiting orders.

Baleful under its powdering of white, Edinburgh Castle rose sheer from its rock above the regent’s head. Seagulls wheeled overhead, fluttering against slate-grey clouds. Yet cramped, cold and damp as it was, the castle looked inviting. Compared with the ice-blown borderlands and their frozen keeps, it was almost as enticing as the palace of Fontainebleau. Feeling the north wind’s bite, Albany vowed never again to go on campaign this late in the year.

Around him soldiers made their dogged way under the arch and up the castle ramps to their quarters. ‘Boy!’ called the regent, grabbing the first who passed. ‘Have my rooms made ready. Be swift.’

‘Tout de suite, votre grâce,’
replied the young man, with a bow. Sopping red hair flapped beneath his helmet, and a river of sleet ran off his cape as he hurried up the cobbled passageway ahead of the regent, to bark orders for his grace’s ease.

Once within the castle doors, Albany stood alone before the great hall fire, sweetening his mood with mead. He downed a tumbler, then made for his room, where he found the fire burning high. A bowl of water sprinkled with lavender steamed on one side of the hearth, and on the other a flagon of hot spiced wine. Dry clothes were spread on a bed whose sheets had been warmed.

The red-haired soldier, who had awaited his arrival, bowed and would have left, but Albany put a grateful hand on his arm. He snatched it away. ‘See you change swiftly,’ he said, ‘lest you catch pneumonia. Here . . .’ He poured some wine and pressed it into the boy’s hand. ‘Drink up, fast. It’ll warm your gizzard, and stave off the chill.’

‘I am most grateful, your grace,’ the boy replied, when he’d drunk.

The duke looked at him. ‘Not one of us, are you? Your accent, I’d guess, is from the north.’

‘Picardie, your grace. But my family lives now in Paris.’

Albany nodded, and began to strip off his jerkin, the young man’s signal to depart. He spoke over his shoulder as the boy left. ‘Join me and the high command here for dinner, and we’ll hope to bring some cheer at last to this misbegotten day.’

That night Albany’s men gathered at his table, the northern youth among them, though he spoke not a word. The duke’s lieutenants were almost as quiet, not risking speech while the regent railed against the troops, and his humiliation at their hands.

‘I should have threatened them with treason for refusing to fight,’ he muttered, staring into his goblet as if he were reading runes.

‘Too late, your grace,’ said Montgomerie, Earl of Eglinton. ‘You gave the order to retreat yourself. We all heard it.’

The logs gave a hiss as hailstones rattled down the chimney, and in the silence that followed mice were heard scuttling across the rafters. The duke’s hand tightened on his cup. In the firelight, his colour deepened and the group held their breath. When his rage erupted, the young soldier leapt with fright. With a sweep of his arm the regent cleared the table of cups and hurled his dish at the wall. Uttering a wail of anger he stood, knocking over his chair, and set about his room, kicking his bed, his kist, the boots that stood by the door.

‘Wretched country!’ he cried, ripping off his woollen cap and throttling it. ‘I can do nothing right! Your men won’t fight, my men are miserable – and who can blame them, badly fed and frozen to death – and the English will not make peace. What am I to do?’

He pulled at his hair, and only the pain made him desist. Panting, he came to a halt, gripping his bedpost as if he were so weary he could not stand without support. Too tall and furious for a chamber so small, he seemed suddenly to have outgrown it. The men at his table had stood as he raged, but now they righted his chair, recovered their goblets and jugs from the floor and took their seats. Already a servant was scampering at their feet with cloths, and soon a fresh table was laid, though the smell of spilt wine would take days to fade.

Eglinton put out a hand. ‘Come, your grace, be seated. It does you no good to fly into such a temper. Cool heads are needed these days. We have had our fill of the other.’

The young soldier, who was still shaking, expected a fresh salvo at this rebuke, but the regent merely nodded and, like a sulky child coaxed back to his toys, returned to the table.

‘So what do you advise?’ he asked, reaching for the wine. ‘Henry ignores my petitions for a truce. It suits him fine to be at war. He knows as well as I that the Scottish army is broken, a useless thing that takes fright at its own shadow. How often must I try to persuade these pathetic creatures to cross into England, always to find myself thwarted on the very point of valour? They dishonour the great name of this nation.’ He drained his cup and poured another. ‘My stomach is sickened. If they cannot, will not, help themselves then I will leave, and soon. The throne of a country such as this is worthless.’

Young Lord Herries leaned forward, his gaunt face cast in smoky shadow. ‘Yet who can blame our men for mistrusting their leaders? They have seen them make unforgivable mistakes, all in the name of glory. Few of your standing can command their faith these days.’

‘What of it?’ barked the regent. ‘It’s their duty to obey orders, not to question them.’

‘Flodden haunts them still, your grace. You need to understand that. Henry takes heart from that vile victory. But,’ he said, running a fingernail along the grain of the table as if testing a seam, ‘I know of a way that might put spirit into the Scots, and strike dread into Henry’s heart.’

‘Why have I not heard of this before?’

‘You have never asked,’ said Herries mildly. The duke held his gaze, searching for insolence, but found nothing he could name. Unversed in Scottish ways, he had yet, after all these years, to interpret the looks he met at every turn, rightly suspecting that bland innocence hid dissembling and deceit, yet never able to detect or unmask either.

‘You need a renegade, your grace,’ Herries continued. ‘Someone with no ties to the court. Such a man, if he could be turned to our cause and bring his own army, might just possibly encourage them to fight.’

As night closed in on the castle and hailstones battered its walls, Herries outlined his idea. He told the king of the Crozier clan, which had no allegiance to the crown, but was under no one else’s thumb. ‘Baron Dacre is Crozier’s worst enemy, a fact we could play to our advantage. If your grace could persuade Crozier that leading your army into England would bring about the Warden General’s ruin, you’d have him in your grasp.’

‘Who?’ asked the regent, his mind bleary with drink. ‘Dacre or Crozier?’

‘Both, by God,’ said Herries, his face tightening with dislike. ‘Thistles under all our skins, each as bad as the other.’

‘You seem not to understand it is Henry I want to crush, not his minions.’ The regent sounded petulant. With a glance at Herries, Eglinton joined the discussion.

‘Your grace, it is Dacre who rules the north. Cut off his head, and Henry too spouts blood. With every drop Dacre loses, the king is weakened. Without the Warden General, the region will fall apart. For all his conceit, not even Surrey can hold it together in one piece. Come that day, we can march in and state our terms, and Henry will be in no position to deny us. You would then have peace, my lord, sooner than you could have hoped.’

The regent played with his cuffs. He gave a wintry smile. ‘Just this morning I believed – nay, prayed – I would not see the borders again this side of spring, but it seems I was too hasty. The very thought of making that journey once again chills my bones. But what must be . . .’

He stood and, reaching Herries’s place, laid his hands on his shoulders. He leaned heavily for a moment, his face wiped of its smile, his mind of its claret fog. The implication was clear. Responsibility for this venture lay on Herries’s slate, as much as on the regent’s.

Releasing his grip, he looked round his men. ‘I hear no disagreement? So be it. Where, then, do I find this nest of rebels?’

Herries nodded to the young soldier, who left the room and returned shortly with a folded parchment. It was spread on the table, corners held down by cups. The regent’s eyes widened. ‘What is this?’

‘It is a drawing, your grace,’ Herries replied, ‘composed by the commander of the horse. He has ridden the borderlands all his life, and this is his image of it. Rough, it’s true, but useful. If only we had the same for the rest of the country.’

The commander’s drawing was faint, the cheap ink faded, and well-worn creases had created new rivers and tracks, but what it showed was recognisable as the uncharted terrain the regent had just left. Seeing it laid out before him made him blink.

‘Here,’ said Herries, pointing to the empty lands near the border, marked with nothing but forest and moor. Albany stared at the nameless wild. In his mind he was already there, hostile eyes watching from behind trees, the bodies of lost travellers boiled to a cold broth in the marshland stews. It would not be an easy journey, and it would not be safe. Yet as he surveyed the drawing, the face of this unforgiving domain holding his eye, he felt its pull. Desolate and dangerous as they were, the borderlands were calling. It might be a siren song, but he felt powerless before it.

He straightened. ‘We leave tomorrow, then.’ He turned to Eglinton. ‘Give the order to the captain of the retinue. And you, boy,’ nodding at the young soldier, ‘will be joining them, to keep my gear in order.’

The early snows had melted, and the valleys were bathed in sun, as if to chasten the regent who had expected storms as well as dragons in so benighted a place. The tracks across the hills were impassable in places, strewn with rocks, or dissolved by rain, but the retinue made good time, spending only three nights on the road. Pennants fluttering in the breeze as they passed through Selkirk, the court’s men raised their faces to the sun, the last they might see this year. A straggle of townsfolk stopped to watch them pass, sweeping their hats off or bobbing clumsy curtseys, boots catching their skirts. The regent waved, but his eyes were on the road, not his people.

Some miles later, when Crozier’s Keep came into view, they slowed. The young soldier was sent ahead to warn of their arrival, and Albany allowed time for the clan to prepare. He need not have been so thoughtful. When they approached, his bugler signalling the eminence of their leader, he and his men were shown into a great hall where the fire did no more than smoulder. An evil wisp of smoke escaped the hearth and curled around the legs of the clan chief, who was standing by the fireplace, sword in his belt, dagger in his boot. At his side was his wife, and around the hall the rest of the family sat, stood, or slouched, all shrouded in gloom. There was a flutter above his head, and a hawk flew across the hall, and settled on a beam.