The Tweedie Passion (9 page)

There were a round dozen men emerging from the peel-tower, some fully accoutred with helmet, jack and lance, others less well equipped. One wore only a pair of long white drawers and held a naked sword high, while his long hair streamed behind him like a plume. Another rode stark naked, a lithe young hero with his mouth open in a challenge and a lance couched ready to kill. Him I would have taken time to examine if I was not so scared I could hardly think. There was a pair of old grey-beards, men of wisdom and undoubted wickedness who had probably seen a hundred skirmishes and battles, and a bevy of youngsters who could not yet have reached their teens, all intent on catching us and spitting us clean on sword and lance.

With that one glance confirming our danger, I put spur to horse and fled. I saw Hugh in front, his face anxious as he looked over his shoulder to ensure my safety, and I saw the fields rising in front to the welcome greyness of the surrounding hills and the comforting shield of night.

'Stay close,' Hugh shouted urgently.

I spurred urgently, feeling sorry for Kailzie, feeling scared for myself and Hugh. I felt less sorry for Kailzie when she bucked under the prick of my spurs, nearly throwing me. I held on grimly, very aware of the horsemen clattering through the dark behind me.

Liddesdale was awake. All along the valley as far as I could see lights were coming on as householders put fire to torches or stoked up their fires and opened their doors. Horsemen were gathering as well as masses of men on foot, while children and women were shouting to one another the length and breadth of the valley.

'Jeannie!' Hugh's shout was urgent. He reined up beside me, grabbed hold of my bridle and pulled me away to the left. 'They're in front of us.'

Peering into the dark I saw shadowy shapes, heard the rattle of bridles and stirrup and followed Hugh off the path and back down to the valley floor, following the bank of the Liddel Water. I hoped there were no men ahead; I had chosen badly when I wanted to cross this valley. My vanity had proved costly. We looked for a gap to the north, some path or opening that would allow us access to the long bald hills in which we could hide and which would eventually take us home to Peebles-shire and the Lethan Valley. Instead all we saw were armed men, riding to block our path, chanting their slogans 'An Armstrong, an Armstrong' or 'An Elliot', 'A Nixon' or whatever riding family to which they claimed their allegiance.

'All Liddesdale is up!' I shouted.

'This way!' Hugh's grin took me by surprise. Trapped in the middle of Liddesdale, surrounded by hundreds of some of the wildest riders in Europe, in the middle of the night and with a woman to look after, he gave me a wide, cheerful grin. 'Let's confuse the Armstrongs.'

Raising his voice to a roar, he shouted 'An Armstrong! An Armstrong!' as loudly as he could and led me back over the Liddel that we had crossed with such hope only a few moments before. I followed, feeling my heart sink yet trusting Hugh with all that I had. Or nearly all that I had. One precious thing I still reserved for Robert, but at that moment I had no thought for that part of me and every thought for saving all the rest.

In the dark it was hard to differentiate between friend and foe, and now that we were riding in the same direction as everybody else, and shouting the same slogan, there was less attention paid to us. 'They're at the Castleton!' Hugh yelled. 'It's a raid by the Grahams!'

His words, shouted with authority and roared out in the dark, had some effect. Many of the riders headed south and west down the flow of the Liddel. Others did not. Stray voices gave contradictory orders.

'This is Mangerton!' The voice roared from this side of the Liddel. I knew that Armstrong of Mangerton was one of the chiefs of the Armstrongs so his name carried more authority than any anonymous voice in the dark. 'Light the bale fires! Form patrols!'

'That's not so good,' Hugh did not lose his smile. 'They will be all around the valley in minutes. We have to hide inside Liddesdale.' I could nearly hear his mind working. 'Are you superstitious?'

The question took me by surprise. 'What?' I am sure I stared blankly at him.

'Are you superstitious? Are you scared of ghosts and bogles and demons?' He glanced around, lifting his hand to wave to a passing group of Croziers as if he knew them well. 'I know that you are well used to dragons!'

Was this a time to joke? Obviously Hugh thought so, to judge by his smile.

'Well, are you superstitious?'

I shook my head. 'No more than anybody else,' I said. I remembered the childhood stories that Robert and I had shared when we tried to frighten each other with tales of witches and fairies. My stories had always been more vivid than his, so that on more than one occasion he had held my hand as we ran home through the dark valley to Whitecleuch or Cardona Tower.

'Good: come with me then.'

We changed direction for the third time that night. Rather than trying to escape across the valley, or joining the men who rode purposefully to their designated positions, he led me up the valley to a spur that lifted some thousand feet high. Hugh had mentioned that the Liddel Valley formed a Y shape, if you remember? Well we were now ascending the fork of the Y, the crotch, if I may be so crude.

'Not many people come up here,' Hugh was a bit breathless as he forced his horse up the steep slope. 'It's haunted, you see. Even the Armstrongs are afraid of ghosts.'

'Are you sure it's the ghosts that daunt them and not the climb?' I pushed poor Kailzie as hard as the mare could go as we ascended that slithering, slippery slope.

We stopped eventually with our horses breathing hard and my muscles aching with strain. Hugh dismounted and helped me off Kailzie. I thought his hand lingered a fraction too long on my arm, but I may have been mistaken. I know I thrust out my bottom slightly too much as I swung off the horse. I did not mean to; it was some instinct over which I had no control. I do know that he took no notice, the pig.

'Where are we?' In the dark I could not see much except a number of humped shapes that could have been tree stumps, ruined dwellings or perhaps great rocks. 'Are we safe here?'

'We'll have to stay here for the day and try and get away tomorrow night.' Hugh said. 'They call this the Nine Stane Rig.'

I knew the name and the evil reputation. Suddenly I felt a chill descend. 'I know the story,' I said.

'All of it?' Hugh's voice was quiet. 'This is a stone circle with nine great standing stones, used by the ancients, maybe the Druids for human sacrifice, they say.'

'I have heard that,' I said, 'although I have never been here before.'

'Not many have,' Hugh told me. 'Not even the Armstrongs come here. That is why I asked if you were scared of bogles and demons and such like.'

'I have never met one,' I controlled the tremor in my voice, 'and have had no reason to fear them.'

'I will tell you the story,' Hugh said, 'once we are settled in.' He did the usual, knee haltering the horses and checking the ground for the best place to lie concealed. We found ourselves in the very centre of the circle, with the ancient stones all around us, chilling in their knowledge.

'Lie still,' Hugh ordered me. 'I will be back shortly.'

'Where are you going?' But he was already gone, slipping into the night. As always when he disappeared, I felt lonely, as if something good had vanished from my life. I was beginning to depend on that man too much. Indeed I was also beginning to like him far too much and I knew I could not allow that.

I lay there, wondering where he was and what he was doing. I also wondered about Robert and my parents. They must be missing me. The thought of their familiar faces and my chamber in Cardrona Tower nearly brought tears. I knew I had to be strong to survive this ordeal: I could not allow myself to weaken.

Unable to lie still, I stood up and walked around inside the circle of stones. Now, what I am about to relate next you may not believe and you may not understand. Well, neither do I. It happened and that is the end of it. Please remember though, that I was born on the midnight of Midsummer's Day, so I am perhaps more susceptible to these sort of events.

It was not dramatic. One minute I was leaning against the nearest of the stones, looking down the valley in the hope of seeing Hugh return, and then a vision came. It was not my usual vision of the burning tower and the scar-faced man. It was a far different one, where I was older, sitting in a chair in a comfortable chamber with a bright fire sparkling within a broad fireplace and tapestries hanging on the wall. I was in an armed chair, with a baby in my arms and a child playing around my feet. I knew I was at home, wherever that home happened to be.

There was a man walking away from me, laughing as he carried a third child. He was tall and broad and confident yet with his back turned I could not see his face. I wanted desperately to see this man that I knew to be my husband. I longed for him to turn. Only when he opened the door did I see the coat-of-arms on the wall above. I looked up, noting the device and the name beneath. The first words were blurred but the first part of the last was clear. It read Robert. I lifted the baby to my shoulder to rub his back and break his wind and rose to read the rest of the name.

'Jeannie?' Hugh was handing something to me. I was back on the Nine Stane Rig with the usual rain descending and the stones pointing to a weeping sky. 'Eat.'

It was a leg of chicken, still warm from somebody's fireside. 'Where did this come from?'

'With most of the people rushing about looking for intruders, nobody is minding their own houses,' Hugh was quite calm. 'I have quite a bag of spoil: apples, chicken, beef, a new cloak for you, two kerchiefs, clean underwear, a kirtle and sleeves… all courtesy of our kindly hosts, the Armstrongs.'

I grabbed at this gift from heaven. Unless you have spent days astride a horse crossing scores of miles of wild territory without a change of clothes, you have no idea how luxurious such a simple thing as clean underwear can be. I had been concerned about that important little matter for quite some time. 'I could kiss you for that,' I said as once again my mouth captured my thoughts and broadcast them without consideration.

'There will be no need for the kissing,' Hugh said, turning away.

I closed my eyes, wondering how many ways I could embarrass this man before he decided that I was not worth his bother.

'You are a kind man,' I said stoutly, 'and nobody could disagree with that.'

'The previous owner of these articles could disagree,' Hugh said.

I frowned at that. You see, in our Border we accepted reiving as part of life. Thieving the property of a rival family, especially one with whom we had a feud, was accepted as normal. There was no stigma attached. The Armstrongs were hunting us down; therefore they were fair game for us to rob.

'Hugh,' I said. 'It was my fault that the valley woke.'

He screwed his face up so it looked even uglier yet strangely more attractive. 'It happened,' he said.

'Yes; and it was my fault that it happened.' If I had been so inattentive with Father or Mother they would not have been backward in telling me exactly how foolish I was. Robert too, would have been withering in his scorn; I expected Hugh to launch a vicious tirade against me. Instead he merely touched me on the shoulder.

'We are safe now,' he said.

'Thank you,' I said, simply, although I doubt he knew for what I was thanking him.

He smiled. 'Now,' he put down another bag as he sat beside me, leaning against the standing stone. 'I was telling you the story of this circle.'

That was the end of it. He never mentioned that incident again.

'In the old days a man named De Soulis was the Lord of Liddesdale and Captain of Hermitage Castle.' Hugh's deep voice filled the space between the standing stones, yet was so low it would not have penetrated beyond. 'He had the reputation of being a bad, wicked man and that was confirmed when the people discovered him stealing the local children to use for his black magic. The people of the valley, the ancestors of the Armstrongs, Elliots and the rest, decided to take their revenge. They took the evil Lord Soulis to this stone circle,' Hugh waved a casual hand around him, 'wrapped him in in lead and popped him in a cauldron.'

'And quite right too,' I approved. 'That is what happens to evil men.'

'Oh there is more,' Hugh said. 'They popped him in a cauldron, lit a fire underneath and boiled him into soup, which they then drank.'

I stared around me. For one fleeting instant I saw the men and women of Liddesdale wrestling Lord Soulis into a cauldron and boiling it up. I could head his screeches as he boiled to death, and I could see the people crowded round, laughing at their revenge as they drank the Soulis soup.

'That is horrible,' I said.

'They say that on dark nights people with the gift can see the people boiling Lord Soulis and can hear his death screams.'

'What nonsense,' I scoffed, looking fearfully into the night.

'I hope you don't get nightmares,' Hugh said.

'Not with you here,' I said quickly and looked away before he did.

It was a few moments before Hugh spoke again. 'I know it is wet,' he said, 'but try and get some sleep. We are moving just before dawn.'

'We're riding in daylight?' I looked up in misbelief.

'The Armstrongs are not fools,' Hugh was no longer smiling. 'They know that any fugitive will sit tight during the day and ride at night. Sooner or later somebody will see our hoof prints leading up here and they will work out where we are. The best thing we can do is hide where they will not expect to see us. We will hide in the open.'

'I don't understand,' I said.

'We are going to ride right through the middle of Liddesdale as though we own the place,' Hugh told me. 'Slow and brazen.' His grin was now as broad as I had ever seen it. 'And that will be a story you can tell your grandchildren!'

I felt that renewed surge of mingled excitement and anticipation as I contemplated riding through Liddesdale. That vision returned, with my husband, if it was my husband, and the three children, with the word Robert on the coat-of-arms. 'You are a daring man,' I said.